Hello
I have a nice pack of friends and I played several games with them. Usually, we play with 3 to 4 Human players, 600 systems map and overall normal settings (with Advanced AI completely disabled). We have played about 20 hours together in several different games and I want to list some suggestions that would fairly improve experience.
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1. Game Setup Desperately Needs More Options
Okay. I have Leviathan DLC and that's why I was always the host of our games. We really, really like Leviathans concept and hunting Space Dragon, Fortress or any other Leviathan before other player seemed like a great idea for a bit of competition between us.
...and then after literally 70 years of playing, struggling through the stupid AI and constant wars, we find out that the only Leviathan in the game is Infinite Machine.
Now tell me, why exactly I can't choose the amount of Leviathans in game setup? Hmm? Why can't I ban certain AI behaviours from spawning like Metalheads or Fanatical Purifers who will screw one of the players because of reasons? (see next point)
The point is - the game setup is lacking. And thanks to that we have another problem:
2. Random Extremely Agressive AI and Lack of Any Comeback Mechanic
In general, we have 3-4 Human players, we are close friends. We play on Normal AI Agressivness to try stay close to the core of the game. However, several times we encountered very similar scenario which goes like this:
a) We spent some time playing
b) One of us meets Fanatical Purifers/Metalheads/Any Other Extremely Agressive AI
c) Despite the fact that all of us try to max out Fleet Capacity so AI will not think of attacking us, one of us is still attacked despite the fact that their Fleet Power is Equivelent and this war is stupid beyond belief.
d) He (Player) either gets steamrolled because Fleet Power comparison is misleading, or he loses so much he is incredibly behind us and will never ever reach our power. In any case, the guy gets mad and we all agree that we want all to reach late game, so we try another game.
e) Go back to point a)
Also Note: sometimes AI will declare war on a player even if it doesn't have fleet to defeat a single Spaceport. Despite that it will still declare it, even if every single planet has a one. What?
All players feel bad, the game slows down incredibly because one player is forced to fight a war he can't reliably win on it's own and the experience suffers a lot from it. If he loses planets, he will literally never ever comeback into the game, because at this point - the game mechanics favours large empires and snowballing.
3. Automatic Survey
We play on the Fastest speed. In that situation, where 4 players need to do a lot of stuff at once, it is mindblowing why Automatic Survey tech is locked so far away in the tech tree.
Not only that, but why exactly we don't have option for Science Ship to not only Automatic Survey, but also Automatic check every Debris or research every Anomaly that has lower than 10% chance of failure?
The game desperately needs more automization if we want Multiplayer experience to be smoother. When we wage a galactic war on each other we don't have time to micro every single science ship to do it's job.
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Do you have any other suggestions for improving multiplayer experience?
I have a nice pack of friends and I played several games with them. Usually, we play with 3 to 4 Human players, 600 systems map and overall normal settings (with Advanced AI completely disabled). We have played about 20 hours together in several different games and I want to list some suggestions that would fairly improve experience.
----------------------------------------------------------
1. Game Setup Desperately Needs More Options
Okay. I have Leviathan DLC and that's why I was always the host of our games. We really, really like Leviathans concept and hunting Space Dragon, Fortress or any other Leviathan before other player seemed like a great idea for a bit of competition between us.
...and then after literally 70 years of playing, struggling through the stupid AI and constant wars, we find out that the only Leviathan in the game is Infinite Machine.
Now tell me, why exactly I can't choose the amount of Leviathans in game setup? Hmm? Why can't I ban certain AI behaviours from spawning like Metalheads or Fanatical Purifers who will screw one of the players because of reasons? (see next point)
The point is - the game setup is lacking. And thanks to that we have another problem:
2. Random Extremely Agressive AI and Lack of Any Comeback Mechanic
In general, we have 3-4 Human players, we are close friends. We play on Normal AI Agressivness to try stay close to the core of the game. However, several times we encountered very similar scenario which goes like this:
a) We spent some time playing
b) One of us meets Fanatical Purifers/Metalheads/Any Other Extremely Agressive AI
c) Despite the fact that all of us try to max out Fleet Capacity so AI will not think of attacking us, one of us is still attacked despite the fact that their Fleet Power is Equivelent and this war is stupid beyond belief.
d) He (Player) either gets steamrolled because Fleet Power comparison is misleading, or he loses so much he is incredibly behind us and will never ever reach our power. In any case, the guy gets mad and we all agree that we want all to reach late game, so we try another game.
e) Go back to point a)
Also Note: sometimes AI will declare war on a player even if it doesn't have fleet to defeat a single Spaceport. Despite that it will still declare it, even if every single planet has a one. What?
All players feel bad, the game slows down incredibly because one player is forced to fight a war he can't reliably win on it's own and the experience suffers a lot from it. If he loses planets, he will literally never ever comeback into the game, because at this point - the game mechanics favours large empires and snowballing.
3. Automatic Survey
We play on the Fastest speed. In that situation, where 4 players need to do a lot of stuff at once, it is mindblowing why Automatic Survey tech is locked so far away in the tech tree.
Not only that, but why exactly we don't have option for Science Ship to not only Automatic Survey, but also Automatic check every Debris or research every Anomaly that has lower than 10% chance of failure?
The game desperately needs more automization if we want Multiplayer experience to be smoother. When we wage a galactic war on each other we don't have time to micro every single science ship to do it's job.
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Do you have any other suggestions for improving multiplayer experience?