The one planet empire. The OP-OPM.

[Parallel Pain]

No, not really.

That is literally your argument. That less resources increases effectiveness while more resources decrease it. If you'd have said large organisations can be less efficient than smaller ones, I might have agreed with you.

Nope.
You said you think that an empire 2X size, with 2X resources, 2X labs, and 2X scientists should have, though not twice as fast, a research time faster than an empire with X of everything.

I told you that no, it should be slower given that X is above a certain baseline. If we base it on real life.

 

[Edmon]

As "OP" as you think your strategy is, at 2260 I have a 10k fleet and 96 pops across 16 worlds. In another 40 years to match your time, I expect to have 4 times that fleet and system count with my planets filling in over the years. I don't care that your tech is that far ahead. I'll just overwhelm you and enjoy your research efforts. Try your strategy on Insane with a full galaxy. I already can outproduce you. Only 94 minerals and your energy credits are negative. What do you do when your only spaceport is destroyed?

Good luck is what I say .

I've been doing not much for a while now. But if we were playing, I would have killed you in the first 10 years or so when I had the 4th level of red laser and the 4th level of spaceport and everyone else was still using what they started with.

I'm not saying it can't be beaten, but it's pretty scary because I could just make a ton of colony ships and then build the basic spaceports if I wanted to, it's not like all the overpowered research will be taken away after. All you really need is fleet support.

I'm losing energy because I have about 15x 4.4k forts out there and they have serious stacking upgrades already. I would not be surprised if one of them could solo that entire 10k fleet of yours.

 

[Edmon]

Nope.
You said you think that an empire 2X size, with 2X resources, 2X labs, and 2X scientists should have, though not twice as fast, a research time faster than an empire with X of everything.

I told you that no, it should be slower given that X is above a certain baseline. If we base it on real life.

And you would be incorrect. Just because I have twice as many labs, resources and personnel does not mean that I have to use them. Therefore I could adopt the exact same situation as the first organisation and achieve 100% minimum all things being equal. Putting all that extra stuff in a warehouse and telling them to do nothing with it.

The idea that I could not use some, all or none of the extra things I have to improve effectiveness is crazy talk.

 

[BrokenSky]

Why is it a problem? If someone is Snowballing out of control, the other empires should band together to give them a right kicking. This is the same problem EUIV has. The punishment for "winning" should be everyone realising you are a serious threat and kicking your teeth in.

Almost every critically acclaimed game has this "Snowball problem". It really isn't a problem, better players should get ahead, that's how it should be. Now controlling the pace of the snowball needs careful consideration. But punishing players for success just makes your game less fun.

Diminishing returns is a better system, because it does not punish success, but it does make it harder to get further and further ahead over time.

The reason snowballing is bad is because it punishes you for playing the game all the way to the end. Once you get past a certain point, ultimate victory is assured, and this turns what was a game into something which is now a chore. I'm under the impression that most people do not play most games of EUIV to the end date. The same for CK2. Once you get past "ok I'm the most powerful guy in the world by enough that no-one can conceivably stop me" it stops being fun. You might as well just say "ok I win" and start again (which is what I understand most people do).

IMO the best way to do this is to add in focus on new areas which become new sources of challenge the stronger you get (e.g. interesting and engaging internal stability mechanics, which become harder to balance the bigger you are).

 

[corny.1234]

There are ways to stop A.I. players from doing much .

Now I do have some concerns that there may be a much stronger A.I. empire on the other side of the galaxy that I've not been able to molest.

I'll apologise in advance for not sharing my strategies, I learnt from EUIV that anything even remotely clever is badwrongfun and will be removed from the game if it ends up on this forum . I am technologically so superior in such a short time to the other empires.

Though I am sad one of them managed to actually expand despite my constant (and I'm peaceful, I never declared war on anyone) harassment.

Developers hate him. Want to know his secrets? Just click on the link below and type in your credit card informations

 

[Edmon]

Developers hate him. Want to know his secrets? Just click on the link below and type in your credit card informations

OPM's? They are more likely than you think.

 

[Lt Loco]

I've been doing not much for a while now. But we were playing, I would have killed you in the first 10 years or so when I had the 4th level of red laser and the 4th level of spaceport and everyone else was still using what they started with.

Have you played on insane? The AI gets double all productions, including research and also double fleet capacity. I'm already fighting against a tech curve. A guy with only one planet is just food.

I'm not saying it can't be beaten, but it's pretty scary because I could just make a ton of colony ships and then build the basic spaceports if I wanted to, it's not like all the overpowered research will be taken away after. All you really need is fleet support.

Not quite true. You need the fleet capacity, sure. But you also need all the energy and minerals from planets to support that fleet. You'd break your energy credits if you ever tried the rapid expansion you describe, and you'd never be able to do it during a war.

I'm losing energy because I have about 15x 4.4k forts out there and they have serious stacking upgrades already. I would not be surprised if one of them could solo that entire 10k fleet of yours.

Let's see, your screenshot shows 4 systems with military bases. Let's assume they each have 4 in a death blossom configuration. In 40 years, when my fleet is at least 4x the size it is now, your forts wouldn't stand a chance, just as your fleet doesn't. And if your fleet can't leave spaceport in fear of losing it, I just blow up one spaceport and contain you while I research your techs.


Now, I understand the point you are making. If you can stay as a single planet, do so for as long as you can. But eventually (and quickly on harder difficulties) you need to expand, and fast. Otherwise, you'll just get rolled over, tech advantage or no. I challenge you to play on Insane with your strategy. Give it a shot. Let me know your success rate. If you can't beat Insane AI, how do you expect to beat people who reliably can beat Insane AI? If you can't beat a Fallen Empire by 2300, or survive against a crisis, your build has failed.

EDIT: What if I just picked off all your mining bases, especially all the power producers? You can't defend your space with your fleet for risk of losing it - once gone, it'd take years to reproduce. Eventually, you will starve out.

 

[BrokenSky]

No. By that argument, an organisation with nothing to research, no resources and no labs would be the fastest research organisation on earth and would have already solved physics.

They have. Unfortunately they have no employees so they can't tell anyone.

 

[Ceranai]

This is ridiculously easy to do against the AI because the AI always attacks your highest level spaceport first and ignores everything else....

OP probably stacked defence stations on his homesystem and let the AI kill themselves. I was winning wars against 5 AI empires (3 advanced and 2 normal) his morning using the same kind of tactics in the first 10 years of the game.

 

[Edmon]

Now, I understand the point you are making. If you can stay as a single planet, do so for as long as you can. But eventually (and quickly on harder difficulties) you need to expand, and fast. Otherwise, you'll just get rolled over, tech advantage or no. I challenge you to play on Insane with your strategy. Give it a shot. Let me know your success rate. If you can't beat Insane AI, how do you expect to beat people who reliably can beat Insane AI? If you can't beat a Fallen Empire by 2300, or survive against a crisis, your build has failed.

I'm glad you understand. Two points:
1) Hull Regeneration restores a percentage of total hit points.
2) Anyone for stacking armour and hit point tech?

This is how a single battleship takes down a 17k stagnant empire stack by itself, ignoring the all damage upgrades .

The starve out idea is good, I did think of it, that's why most of my power production is on the home world. Stacking +5% energy upgrades take care of the rest. Killing the outer mining would hurt research though, a lot.

 

[Edmon]

This is ridiculously easy to do against the AI because the AI always attacks your highest level spaceport first and ignores everything else....

OP probably stacked defence stations on his homesystem and let the AI kill themselves. I was winning wars against 5 AI empires (3 advanced and 2 normal) his morning using the same kind of tactics in the first 10 years of the game.

Pretty much.

 

[xarastier]

Why is this a bad thing? Does a empire with twice as many labs, twice as much money and twice as many space things to study not progress faster than an empire without those things?

No.. It most certainly will progress faster.

 

[Ceranai]

No and No.

If you want an A.I. to be powerful, give it an advanced start, plenty of space to grow into and leave it alone.

The fact I have Xeno leadership amuses me, because it gives away what my clever little gimmick was, but I'm glad no-ones actually worked it out because it'd be on the chopping block so fast as badwrongfun that it'd be patched out before you can say "5 year truces".

By far the fastest way for the AI to grow is to eat other empires. Giving it space certainly lets it freely colonise but the AI is NOT a smart human player, it doesn't see all that space and think OH lets colonise all that. What it does is colonises and then upgrades its worlds, every now and again sending out a ship.

I usually play with 39 empires on 1000 star galaxies and there are massive empires that have formed by the 100 year mark as well as massive federations. All you needed to do was keep 8 normal AI empires weak, which isnt easy but also isnt very difficult... its much harder to control the rest of the galaxy when it is full of other empires than when it is mostly empty

 

[Ceranai]

Pretty much.

You've actually inspired me to do the same thing. Blobbing is just so easy it will be interesting to see how this goes

 

[Badbonez]

No you are incorrect.

I have not touched the A.I. difficulty for a start.

I may have missed it, but what were the difficulties and aggressiveness settings for this game?

 

[Parallel Pain]

And you would be incorrect. Just because I have twice as many labs, resources and personnel does not mean that I have to use them. Therefore I could adopt the exact same situation as the first organisation and achieve 100% minimum all things being equal. Putting all that extra stuff in a warehouse and telling them to do nothing with it.

The idea that I could not use some, all or none of the extra things I have to improve effectiveness is crazy talk.

No. It won't be. Put all your labs at full capacity in real life and you'd still be slower because implementation is a bitch. And Implementation is rolled into the Research in game.

If you had X size empire but 2X the research and labs, then yes you'd be faster. A lot faster in this case. But if you also had 2X size empire, you'll definitely be slower.

 

[Naldiin]

Can we see the same strategy replicated, but under different (less favorable) starting circumstances?

How about Insane Difficulty, Medium galaxy with normal starts (17 basic, 4 advanced starts). Crowded galaxies on insane is pretty much the crucible for testing strategies - lets see it work there. Aggressiveness should be default.

We can call it confirmed if you can survive to and defeat whichever Late Game Crisis you get. I think that's a fair test.

 

[Edmon]

No. It won't be. Put all your labs at full capacity in real life and you'd still be slower because implementation is a bitch. And Implementation is rolled into the Research in game.

If you had X size empire but 2X the research and labs, then yes you'd be faster. A lot faster in this case. But if you also had 2X size empire, you'll definitely be slower.

Good, we're getting somewhere now, which is awesome.

Your point here is actually a question of the level of centralisation, distribution and production. The argument that could be made, is that the ability say, to build a level II power plant and the tools to build them has to be sent to an entire empire and that takes time and that that is factored into the research cost.

This makes sense if we weren't playing a futuristic game where such things could be done trivially because in real life right now, moving research data around, retooling factories and such is no where near the task it used to be due to standardisation and modular workshops. This is a task that a vast company actually achieves more easily than a small one and thus is more effective.

There would definitely be effectiveness lost, I already said that, but the effectiveness in total would be around 100% to 200%. If you can achieve the research more quickly, you then have more time to do the production and implementation, even if that implementation requires greater scale.

Just because HSBC is badly managed, doesn't mean other companies are also badly managed.

 

[Edmon]

Can we see the same strategy replicated, but under different (less favorable) starting circumstances?

How about Insane Difficulty, Medium galaxy with normal starts (17 basic, 4 advanced starts). Crowded galaxies on insane is pretty much the crucible for testing strategies - lets see it work there. Aggressiveness should be default.

We can call it confirmed if you can survive to and defeat whichever Late Game Crisis you get. I think that's a fair test.

If I don't play pacifist like I did in this game, this will be a trivial challenge that'll involve lots of vasseline.

The only way an A.I. might have a chance against me is if it starts a million miles away from me where I can't molest it with a super-early super-tech corvette rush.

 

[Lt Loco]

If I don't play pacifist like I did in this game, this will be a trivial challenge that'll involve lots of vasseline.

The only way an A.I. might have a chance against me is if it starts a million miles away from me where I can't molest it with a super-early super-tech corvette rush.

Hahahaha hahahah hah hah hah...

Oh wait, you're serious.

No.