Tips for making the endgame more interesting?

from GalCiv3 Forums

I'm finding that I'm blazing through the tech tree and ages way too quickly and the mopup phase comes too soon. In order to extend the early and mid game, I make tech progression the slowest, allow you only to trade techs you've researched, and modify a greatly increased chance for the dreadlords to appear as an endgame crisis. Thoughts? Your personal methods?

 

34,548 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Well I guess you could add a slower setting to tech speed before the game starts, or add more techs to the tech tree.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Tech speed setting is not a solution, all it does is slow inital Tech, max of like 30 turns, once you have your fist research world up it gets negated.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Brad's AI improvements should help keep the AI pacing w/ the player.  As of right now the AI has an early advantage and then looses steam as the game goes on, so if the player can get past the early AI advantage it's just mop up after that.  With Brad's AI improvements it should allow the AI to keep pace with the player and keep the mop up phase from being so lop sided.  Hopefully.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

One simple solution that should work is incremental difficulty levels.

 

After x number of turns, the AI difficulty level goes up by one level!

 

You could tweak it to delay the level up if the AI power rating is x amount higher than the player. So whatever happens, the leveling mechanism is going to try to keep the game interesting and avoid it becoming too hard or too easy.

 

Another option which would be fun.... AI discovery of per-curser fleets!

It will be only available for the most powerful AI the player is at war with and only if its power rating goes below the player. The more the power rating goes down, the more chance its got of getting the fleet. How powerful this fleet will be is determined by the player technology level, it should be significantly more powerful than what the player can produce..... that would be FUN!

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I like the idea of incremental difficulty.

 

It actually makes sense when you consider that as The Galaxy Turns each race learns more, researches more and builds more. And over time does that faster and better. So not only will their ships become harder to smash than their first attempts, their difficulty should go up. How would you bring that into the game, that is the question: each tech/ship gives a % increase? More Mega Events occur for that race as time goes by and their race power grows?

Maybe as Mystikmind says, the power rating should have an impact ie a small, lazy empire that as Normal difficulty isn't suddenly or even gradually going to become Godlike. They will always suck.

 

 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Mystikmind, reply 4

One simple solution that should work is incremental difficulty levels.

 

After x number of turns, the AI difficulty level goes up by one level!

 

You could tweak it to delay the level up if the AI power rating is x amount higher than the player. So whatever happens, the leveling mechanism is going to try to keep the game interesting and avoid it becoming too hard or too easy.

 

Another option which would be fun.... AI discovery of per-curser fleets!

It will be only available for the most powerful AI the player is at war with and only if its power rating goes below the player. The more the power rating goes down, the more chance its got of getting the fleet. How powerful this fleet will be is determined by the player technology level, it should be significantly more powerful than what the player can produce..... that would be FUN!
The problem with this idea is all your doing here is giving the Ai cheats to solve the problem. This leaves you with a feeling the Ai is cheating. I now this is only if the power level falls below yours. A better solution would be to have an Ai that adapts it's style based on how you play. Since you can get an idea on how good it's doing by stats why can't it do the same thing,and change it's building style accordingly. This would require a lot more Ai strat charts though. Only using the default if you can't match it's power rating.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting admiralWillyWilber, reply 6


Quoting Mystikmind,
reply 4

One simple solution that should work is incremental difficulty levels.

 

After x number of turns, the AI difficulty level goes up by one level!

 

You could tweak it to delay the level up if the AI power rating is x amount higher than the player. So whatever happens, the leveling mechanism is going to try to keep the game interesting and avoid it becoming too hard or too easy.

 

Another option which would be fun.... AI discovery of per-curser fleets!

It will be only available for the most powerful AI the player is at war with and only if its power rating goes below the player. The more the power rating goes down, the more chance its got of getting the fleet. How powerful this fleet will be is determined by the player technology level, it should be significantly more powerful than what the player can produce..... that would be FUN!

The problem with this idea is all your doing here is giving the Ai cheats to solve the problem. This leaves you with a feeling the Ai is cheating. I now this is only if the power level falls below yours. A better solution would be to have an Ai that adapts it's style based on how you play. Since you can get an idea on how good it's doing by stats why can't it do the same thing,and change it's building style accordingly. This would require a lot more Ai strat charts though. Only using the default if you can't match it's power rating.

 

What your talking about is how the higher difficulty power boosts the AI with cheating instead of cleverness.

What i am talking about, is the early game AI sprint.... the player can barely keep up, but then after the player puts in all that extreme effort to survive, he is rewarded with an AI that runs out of puff, and the player feels seriously ripped off.

We want to be challenged mid to late game AS WELL as the early game, this is the big problem.... possibly improved AI cleverness may allow the AI to maintain pressure on the player, but how to do that without overwhelming the player early game? If the AI is going to overwhelm the player early game then the player has to reduce the difficulty level but then that will not help them maintain the challenge mid to late game - the problem is not solved.