Fitting Game Settings

[Schlafendes Wiesel]

Hello everyone,
its hard for me to find some game settings which feel right. THe problem is that most of the settings influence each other. There is end game year and tech cost. When i play with the default settings i end up with all the techs in the mid game and have ~ 200 more years to play. When reducing the time until mid and endgame are reached, there is not enough time for level up federations or have more than just a handfull of gc resolutions. Same with the difficulty of ai empires and crisis. When playing on ga (even with scaling) the deafault crisis is a joke.

So what are good settings for the game speed which allow a proper use of feature like the gc and how i have to adjust everything depending on the difficulty? I dont want to play a lot of games whith options where the game gets boring (waiting for the crisis) or i cannot use the game mechanics. I hope that you have some advices for me.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

* A federation needs 150 years at max cohesion to reach level 5
* The galactic community forms around 50 years into the game, can pass a resolution every 6 years by default, and has over 70 resolutions. Passing around half of them might take around 200 years depending on repeals, denouncements, and emergency measures.

If galcom has half the resolutions at year 2450 (250), and you finish the tech tree at the normal midgame year of 2300 (100), and you'd like those events to line up, you could try increasing tech costs by 2.5x. Theoretically that would put you at 40% tech at a default midgame date. You'd probably want to play at the fastest speed, though.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I play at 225% tech cost, pretty much everything else default for a large galaxy, which I find lines up pretty nicely with getting endgame techs at endgame dates.

 

[Xaelyn]

There's also mods to speed up federation xp and galcom resolutions, if you're looking to speed things up instead of slowing them down.

 

[TheRomanRuler]

Once you think you find the right settings, i recommend downloading dynamic difficulty mod, but don't touch anything or activate anything in it, only use it if you find yourself in already later in the game and find out that some settings are not to your liking. It has lot of delay ofc before it's effects are truly felt, but you can use it to adjust things closer to your liking so you can finish the game and not be forced to start a new one when you have already gotten so far.

Its not perfect but you propably want to give it a shot before you give up a campaign.

Steam Workshop::Dynamic Difficulty - Ultimate Customization

steamcommunity.com

 

[Schlafendes Wiesel]

Thank you all for your advices. I will definitely try this mod on my next non-Ironman Game.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

I personally like these settings:

1. Admiral, scaling, mid game and aggressive AI. I get a breather in the early game but mid and late game difficulty really ramps up.

2. Mid game 2250, end game 2350, game over 2425. With these setting the Khan, crissis and War in Heaven are a real challenge but not impossible.

3. Crissis x 5, you need to have your Federation setup or your mega uber empire ready to rock and roll by 2350.

4. Technology/Unity x2 slowdown. I can still hit repeatable tech easy without technocracy and finish the perk trees without spiritualism by 2350. If you really focus on diplomacy, tech or unity you will still blow through the corresponding game mechanics. This tech/unity slow down can really bring out specialized builds and show thier true power.

5. Small galaxy with 2 fallen empires and 12 AI. The game does not drag on forever and can handle the late game without slow downs or stutter.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

I like to lower guaranteed habitable worlds from 2 to 1 and decrease logistic growth scaling.

Not sure how well this does what you want in practice, but in theory, it should lead to slightly fewer pops, and by extension, fewer resources to wage wars with.

Another thing nobody has mentioned is maybe trying some of the new mid-game crises from the ModJam. I haven’t played them all, but they should make the mid-game feel longer + make the galaxy overall weaker when the crisis comes along.

On the other hand, mid-game crises don’t scale, so GA AI will probably roll over them. YMMV.

 

[TheRomanRuler]

I have been running following settings in modded game last time i played (just before 3.6 patch):

Large (800 stars) (would increase but too much lag)
Elliptical
Hapitable worlds 0.25x I actually enjoy having few planets but large galaxy, less to micro and each planet is more precious.
Guaranteed habitable worlds 0
Primitive civs 2x (would increase but too much lag)
Hyperlane density 0.5x, because i like having lot of choke points.
Abandone gateways 0.25x, again because i like having choke points
wormhole pairs 0.25x again because i like having choke points
Tech/tradition cost 1x
logistic growth ceiling 1x
Growth required scaling 0.9x
Caravaneers on
L-gates on
Xeno-compatibility off (because lag)
AI empires 16 (would increase but too much lag)
Advanced AI starts 3 (might increase but too much lag)
Advanced neighbours off, with so few hyperlanes i might end up being locked into a corner where i can't do anything and eventually get wiped out
Fallen Empires 4 (would have more but galaxy size limits this)
Marauder Empires 3 (would again have more but galaxy size limits)
Crisis strenght 1.25x, but idk how good this is or if i should increase or decrease it. Less planets there are, harder crises are in general (i think?) so 1.25x might be good. Also not sure if i will pick mod that allows for all crises to happen in same game.
Crisis type is Random
Difficulty is commodore with mid game scaling difficulty
Difficulty adjusted AI modifier is on but i have yet to try this
AI Agressiveness High
mid game start year 2400
End game start year 2500
Victory year 2600

I plan to buy next expansion tomorrow and start a new campaign. I just bought Ryzen 7 5800X3D, it will arrive some time this month, so i might add in more factions and up the galaxy size a step higher and start my game tomorrow, then i will hopefully get my new CPU before late game lag.