Game Pacing

from GalCiv3 Forums

I've played a few games as Krynn on a Gigantic map with all races enabled plus one custom faction that I made a long time ago.

Tight clusters, common planets, common habitable, common extreme.

Research pacing and game pacing "very slow".  "Normal" difficulty.

I generally have been playing as expansionist influence/research turtles (spam out colony ships then make all of the planets generally just produce research and influence).

What I've been finding is that pretty much none of the other races have really gotten anything done by the time I find them (between turn 30-50?).  No military, not many colonies, crap research, etc.  By turn 100 or so I've explored far enough that I'm obviously super far ahead of everyone I've come across and am generally finding that looking down the tech tree I could just win a research victory in ~50 turns (without even trying to do so up until this point, researching enough diplomacy so that people don't hate me, enough military so that I could scale-up in a hurry if the need arose, and all of the other quality of life stuff). 

My sort of macro-plan was just to be influence monsters and flip everyone else - but the game doesn't even last long enough for that to start to happen since I could just research victory so soon (and this is with research set to "very slow"..

Thoughts?  How long have everyone else's games been lasting with a Gigantic galaxy with lots of stars/planets and 8 or 9 races?

Any musings would be appreciated,

cheers,

4,147 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

game pacing and balance it out of whack. i play slowest research pacing and normal game pacing: still the most time i had to spend on a technology was ~7 turns. i pump out large ships in 1 turn and the best ai on large map set to second most difficult option is at least on order of magnitude behind.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I have not played around with the difficulty levels and slow research, but while I don't have great difficulty winning on normal, I have not experienced anything like the success you have had.

To be honest, I suspect that you play the game so expertly, your results are not comparable or useful when compared to the average player. :)

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

What do you have your pirates set at?

I am noticing a similar effect on an insane map where I am outpacing the AI.  However, I have pirates set to common and I've noticed that the AI powers have a lot of trouble with pirates.  Wherever pirates are common, the AI doesn't expand into that area, or beyond that area.  Meanwhile, I (being human, supposedly) arm my colony ships, escort my colony ships, or simply reroute my colony ships around pirate fleets/bases.  The few AI colony ships I have seen are unarmed and seem to follow direct routes right through pirate infested areas.  I need to play more to confirm this.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Hamilmac, reply 3

What do you have your pirates set at?

I am noticing a similar effect on an insane map where I am outpacing the AI.  However, I have pirates set to common and I've noticed that the AI powers have a lot of trouble with pirates.  Wherever pirates are common, the AI doesn't expand into that area, or beyond that area.  Meanwhile, I (being human, supposedly) arm my colony ships, escort my colony ships, or simply reroute my colony ships around pirate fleets/bases.  The few AI colony ships I have seen are unarmed and seem to follow direct routes right through pirate infested areas.  I need to play more to confirm this.
End of Hamilmac's quote

 

well, my pirates have just been whatever the default setting is.  It's crossed my mind that the pirates are putting the AI behind early then keeping them down.  Unsure - one of the ways that I've gotten around this is just by investing in ship movement speed - since the pirates are 2-moves/turn limited once you're >3 (it's pretty straightwarward to get up to 6+ with /very/ minimal investment) it's easy to just outrun them.  Minus the annoyance of micromanaging your ships so that they don't get sniped off when you aren't looking...

 

If I find the time I'll fiddle more with the difficulty settings (I clearly need to turn the AI up).  I suppose one could always just soak and see how the AI deals with pirates, generally..

 

cheers

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


I've played a few games as Krynn on a Gigantic map with all races enabled plus one custom faction that I made a long time ago.

Tight clusters, common planets, common habitable, common extreme.

Research pacing and game pacing "very slow".  "Normal" difficulty.

I generally have been playing as expansionist influence/research turtles (spam out colony ships then make all of the planets generally just produce research and influence).

What I've been finding is that pretty much none of the other races have really gotten anything done by the time I find them (between turn 30-50?).  No military, not many colonies, crap research, etc.  By turn 100 or so I've explored far enough that I'm obviously super far ahead of everyone I've come across and am generally finding that looking down the tech tree I could just win a research victory in ~50 turns (without even trying to do so up until this point, researching enough diplomacy so that people don't hate me, enough military so that I could scale-up in a hurry if the need arose, and all of the other quality of life stuff). 

My sort of macro-plan was just to be influence monsters and flip everyone else - but the game doesn't even last long enough for that to start to happen since I could just research victory so soon (and this is with research set to "very slow"..

Thoughts?  How long have everyone else's games been lasting with a Gigantic galaxy with lots of stars/planets and 8 or 9 races?

Any musings would be appreciated,

cheers,
End of quote

I thnik Frogboy said the AI needed a lot more work on "normal".  And it definately needs improvements on how it manages its colonies, so that hurts it past the initial colony rush.

I'm playing with "gifted AI". Still trying to finish my first game ever since beta 5 :) I always encounter massive bugs that prevents me from wiping out everybody.  In particular, I wanted to see if the AI can use the technologies I'm giving it late game.

But year, some 250 techs + other specializations you can acquire from trade is not enough for huge+ maps.  Without rushing and taking my time to build up large fleets, upgrade all ships&starbases, I could win by ascension or research by the time I control 60% of the the galaxy, wich is why I usually disable those victory settings.  If I wanted to rush through conquest, I'd get an influence victory before reaching the end of the tech tree.

 

I find the AI slowly loses pace and fall behind after the colony rush is over.  And that's exactly when we start really developping our planets, with the terroforming techs that let's us choose exactly where we want a new tile, so as to maximize our bonus to population, research, manufacturing or money.  That can't be a coincidence, and I think it will require more tests on our part and more attention from the devs (wich they said they would, post-release, and even before the release).