How man empires do you use on a huge galaxy (1,000 stars)?

[Fenris_SE]

I only ever play with 10-12 ais on a huge galaxy.

Its never what I would call "hard", as you should have a lot of room to expand, and even if you get into a war you cannot handle, worst case you will lose a few systems on your border. After a while you will outexpand the AI, unless you get boxed in.

One problem I have been noticingis the number of races joining federations. Often one of those will pick a fight with a fallen empire whoch drags the entire federation down.

I was planning on trying a 20 ai game next, but I worry the AIs will be even more ineffective late game against fallen empires and crisis, with even smalle fleets than they can muster now.

Yeah, the small fleet thing seems to be a problem with 20 AI. Right now in one game a Fallen Empire woke up and owns the right half of the map since no one can even put a dent in it. I'm about to take over the L Gate cluster just so I can bounce around the map and take it out or at least fragment it enough for other empires to do something.

But after reading the various replies, I feel that I may just need to up the difficulty to help solve my problem. Even though the AI may bump into each other earlier, if one wins then hopefully with a harder difficulty rating that AI will grow into something more effective. I may also start playing with some AI having advanced starts, I just always worry that the advanced AI will be my neighbor and be a fanatical purifier or determined exterminator lol.

 

[Strangedane]

I may also start playing with some AI having advanced starts

Its important to realise that this doesn't make the game harder, but easier as you'll have more pops to conquer and snowball off.

 

[unmerged(350868)]

But after reading the various replies, I feel that I may just need to up the difficulty to help solve my problem.

Interestingly...

I am bumping up the difficulty with each game, last time being admiral.

The great khan event happened, and I was stoked, as this would have allowed me to link 2 parts if my empire once the khan has pushed up and taken a bit of my neighbours territory. He was probably the weakest, and by far the smallest faction in the game (although was in a 3 man federation at the start of the game, so perhaps had a tech boost).

I was sitting back waiting for the great Khan fleets to clear a path... but then I got a bit greedy, and thought I would wait a bit longer, as there were some colonies adjacent that I could "liberate". But then my neighbour counter attacked... and started to push the khan back... and I missed my chance to link up.

The point was that I dont think its the power of the empire, but the amount of territory that is the problem. Smaller empires consolidate their fleets more effectively.

The megastructure array allows you to see how fleets are deployed across the galaxy, and it shocked me how nany useless fleets there are. 99% seem to be 250-5k in strength. They are not configuered to take down large starbases, let alone fallen empires or a crisis... let alone an "x"crisis.

I dont know if this can be fixed with a mod.I am going to give grand admiral a go next, but I am sure other people on here would have better insight on if the highest difficulty increases fleet effectiveness. I suspect it will be the same problem, with slightly stronger fleets.

For me there is not much challenge once you can get a big fleet stack. Sometimes an awakened empire can blaze a trail with a lots of smaller fleets, which can make the game more interesting. If they stay quiet it is a long time until the end game.

 

[ZeeHero]

usually 16 to 18 empires, 2-3 FEs 1-2 marauders.

 

[Fenris_SE]

Its important to realise that this doesn't make the game harder, but easier as you'll have more pops to conquer and snowball off.

Yeah, I didn't think of it that way tbh. Was kind of thinking that if they aren't next to me and have free run of part of the map for awhile that they'd build up.

I really do wish we could decide which empires are the advanced ones with that setting. I'd love to have Determined Exterminators or a Devouring Swarm set to an advanced start.

 

[ZeeHero]

yeah DE and FP AI seem to have the same problems players do early on, only worse cuz the AI is dumb.

 

[klopkr]

Max empires, but it would really be nice to be able to put in more without depending on mods that never update - since 30 also works fine for medium map.

Especially tiny to medium maps could have had their amount of empires cap increased without too harsh performance issues, at least on my system.

I don't disagree but I don't think the issue with 30 empires in a small map is the game running it but the AI being even more incapable if they can't get a decent number of planets and resources to even play the game.

Personally it's the opposite I really want. I wish I could have 2000 stars and 30 max ai.

 

[horgoz]

Max empires(No advanced AI starts though), max fallen empires and between 3-5 Marauders.

I am have a tedency to try and claim as much space as I can in the early game without fighting and then hunker down behind my forts until I got enough research that nothing can compete with me. Which is fun sometimes, but have gotten boring over time. So to force myself to play a bit more aggressively I have started playing with the above, that way I don't have to much space to expand in, must fight if I want to get more space and can't turtle behind forts as much.

I might add either the Startech or Starnet AI soon to my list of mods as well, to make things more difficult again.

 

[Turean]

I prefer a smaller number of empires, like 10-12. That way each one actually feels special and interesting and not just computer player #27 whatever. I also like to play with 0.25 habitable worlds and 0 guaranteed so the extra space for each empire is pretty much necessary. 5 fallen empires and 3 marauders.

 

[Jaxck]

I've been having way more fun by doing these steps:

• Turn down galaxy size. There's just not enough content to fill huge galaxies, especially since it vanilla only one precursor civ will spawn. Currently playing on 600 stars, and even with Gigastructures & more Events mods (and enabling all precursors), the last few stars can get a bit stale.
• Turn down empire numbers below 10 and give every empire an advanced start. This helps the AI out so much, and makes it dramatically harder for the player to win in the first 50 by taking out their immediate neighbours. Eight seems to be a good starting point. Any more and you'll end up with empires on top of one another unable to expand. Any fewer and they won't fill the space fast enough to keep up with the player.
• Turn down Habitable planets to 0.5. The biggest drag that slows down the late game, beyond the obvious technical issues with how pops are implemented, is the sameness of planets and the need to micromanage dozens of similar worlds. Any lower than this however and the AI will fail since they don't know how to use Habitats correctly.
• Use Starnet/Startech AI. This AI can actually keep up with the player, at least if they have enough planets to colonize.

 

[TrotBot]

Just curious what others use. I've been using 20 and 4 Fallen Empires, but starting to think that may unintentionally be making the game too easy a lot of the time. There are games where other empires are only a short way off in each direction, effectively blocking growth. I was thinking that was just a "me" problem, but if other empires are running into the same thing, then none of them can effectively grow. With the player it isn't too bad, may make for a boring early game but I can usually turtle up and concentrate on science, alloys, and growing a fleet to eventually burst forth and start taking over empires. Just not convinced the AI does this well when running into the same situation.

Could be because I only play on Captain level, maybe I should try Commodore. But when empires actually grow a bit, it seems like captain may be my skill level lol

So are 20 empires too many, or am I just getting unlucky with the placement RNG?

i usually do 10-12 empires in a single player game, plus marauders, fallen empires, and traders, and that seems to give me and them all enough room.