The Origins are an interesting variation to the game, but I saw the notes about them not offering any balance guarantees. Recently, I have discovered that Stefan Anon rates my usual Megacorp origin of Galactic Doorstep as F tier, something "you never want to play"; but I DO! Obviously he hasn't discovered what makes it fun and rather strong from the late-early or mid-game on, once you are established (basically compared to prosperous unification with UNE, I have guaranteed gateway tech availability rather than risking having to wait a long time. As a Megacorp, you try and play tall and establish the economy, then be in a position to take advantage of opportunities like the marauders, gray tempest or hostile take overs of other corps encroaching into your allied branch offices.
Playing on Grand Admiral with scaling in 2.8.1, I would win consistently, survival to the mid-game being key. However without scaling, the resource bonuses early on made luck of a good start position or galaxy (SA re-rolls on GA no scaling unless he has 2 choke points), but I prefer to accept the challenge of what I am given.
There is however a problem, that is finding the right difficulty level, that maintains challenge in the game, without having a super easy or nightmare start which takes all the uncertainty about victory.
It strikes me that being able to use the sliders, allows the player to adjust for origin difficulty, as it stands I rely either on luck in the early game, or find the game challenge isn't there once I have caught up on the AIs that tend to fight endless stupid wars.
So already the player chooses mid & end game start years, now let's have difficulty settings for the start, mid & end too, rather than a limited toggle on/off of scaling.
Start (2200) Mid (2300) End (2400)
Commodore Admiral Grand Admiral
That is telling Stellaris to scale from Commodore to Admiral over the first 100 years; then from Admiral to Grand Admiral over the next.
By default, the start, mid & end difficulty can be Ensign.
I guess the current scaling to Admiral, would be Ensign, Commodore, Grand Admiral; though perhaps a blank mid, could mean scaling from start to end year.
This design is actually more understandable, with a note saying the difficulty increases or decreases between the points.
Playing on Grand Admiral with scaling in 2.8.1, I would win consistently, survival to the mid-game being key. However without scaling, the resource bonuses early on made luck of a good start position or galaxy (SA re-rolls on GA no scaling unless he has 2 choke points), but I prefer to accept the challenge of what I am given.
There is however a problem, that is finding the right difficulty level, that maintains challenge in the game, without having a super easy or nightmare start which takes all the uncertainty about victory.
It strikes me that being able to use the sliders, allows the player to adjust for origin difficulty, as it stands I rely either on luck in the early game, or find the game challenge isn't there once I have caught up on the AIs that tend to fight endless stupid wars.
So already the player chooses mid & end game start years, now let's have difficulty settings for the start, mid & end too, rather than a limited toggle on/off of scaling.
Start (2200) Mid (2300) End (2400)
Commodore Admiral Grand Admiral
That is telling Stellaris to scale from Commodore to Admiral over the first 100 years; then from Admiral to Grand Admiral over the next.
By default, the start, mid & end difficulty can be Ensign.
I guess the current scaling to Admiral, would be Ensign, Commodore, Grand Admiral; though perhaps a blank mid, could mean scaling from start to end year.
This design is actually more understandable, with a note saying the difficulty increases or decreases between the points.