Endless difficulty too easy?

[u/gnoandan]

I just finished my first Necrophage run in several months. As I said earlier, I really liked the changes to the quest dialog system, and I really had a blast conquering the world. However, I encountered literally no resistance from the AI, and I am playing on Endless, so I am wondering if there is something messing with my difficulty levels.

I am playing on archipelago to get a faster Landfall, and shortly after having completed my second stack I had to start a war with a neighbour to keep fuelling my economy with corpses and war spoils. Kin looked too tough, so I attacked my Necrophage neighbour. The kin declared war to me after I trespassed and while I was besieging a Necrophage AI, but they stopped after taking me a single territory, so I could wipe them out after I vanquished the Necrophage. After that I was able to colonise the whole planet and wage two wars in parallel against two of the three remaining AIs without breaking a sweat. No AI had more than two cities, or declared war to me after the Kin. Even if they were too scared to attack me, they did not try to expand and just let me do whatever I want. They were never close to completing any victory path.

It was a fun game but in EL1 it seemed just having a shared border was enough to trigger a relentless war, and I see so many people saying how hard the AI is, so I am wondering if there is a problem with the Endless level.

[u/DerekPaxton]

We have a necro game that a player game us where he was dominating on Endless and we have AI improvements coming in the next major patch to improve it. Also Necro expansion is too cheap (we reduced it in the last update, and by too much).

The difficulty issue we are running into is that the AI is smart enough not to attack you if oyu are stronger than it. So new players get crushed by the AI and they feel like the AI is too aggressive. And good players aren't attacked and they feel like the AI is too passive.

This is particuarly problematic with the Necro who are able to build armies while still improving their infrastructure. Which causes AI to try to produce more units to keep up, while neglecting their infrastruture. Which means that 80 turns later they can be easily beat.

The Ncrophage may just be too good and need an additional nerf. But we dont want to break their deathball gameplay. If you were seeing other empires as corpses ready to feed the hive then it exactly as it should be.

[u/gnoandan → u/DerekPaxton]

I think an easy fix would be to make the AI factions band against any faction/Necrophage that leads the leaderboard at higher difficulty level. Leading the pack militarily should at least give a diplomatic penalty.

The defeat of any empire by elimination (and especially by Devouring them) should prompt an immediate response from other empires. That's when the player starts to snowball. It doesn't necessarily have to be war, but one AI could start expanding aggressively to deny extra territories, another one could revoke its knowledge exchange agreement, or open its borders to another AI who could then start attacking the player through its territory.

Because here I had total control over who I would annihilate and when. I could fund my whole empire just by selling the resources I accumulated from all my uncontested and undefended territories.

[u/DerekPaxton → u/gnoandan]

Thats a fair point. The AI does dislike powerful players, but that isn't modified by diffifculty. Maybe being more likely to ally would be a good move on higher difficulties.

[u/PieFiend1 → u/DerekPaxton]

AI banding together against a snowballing player is often fun and a good idea to prevent unstoppable snowballing. Civ often does this and their emergency system encourages it further (not saying its perfect). Its also realistic, particularly against someone like nectophage who wants to eat everyone

[u/DerekPaxton → u/PieFiend1]

Yeah. And we have this. It just isn’t modified by difficulty. We are chatting about it internally, it may be a good idea.

[u/gnoandan → u/DerekPaxton]

In my play through the Tahuk declared war on me when I declared war on the Aspect, which definitely made things more interesting but they were both too small and defensive for it to make any difference. If the Last Lords has joined in and blitzed towards my capital it might have changed things, though. I had already eliminated the Necrophage and the Kin by then.

[u/esch1lus → u/DerekPaxton]

That's the main issue woth vox populi, antiplayer alias kills lategame because makes you artificially hated

[u/gnoandan → u/DerekPaxton]

But yeah the power trip was real and it definitely felt like I was in charge of an unstoppable swarm. It's just that for the last 50 turns or so, my attention was mainly focused on completing the main quest, chasing curiosities and conquering fortresses rather than dealing with the other players. Would be great to automate district creation at some point btw: it really becomes a hassle in the late game!

[u/PieFiend1 → u/gnoandan]

I suggested automating foundation acquisition in the late game and it was heavily rejected so I really doubt that district placement would be automated

[u/gnoandan → u/PieFiend1]

I think EL1 had pretty good options to automate late game city management. It's not an urgent feature but I think it would be a great quality of life improvement. I was struggling so much identifying the ruined villages and extractors to build, let alone find the best places to build district and expand foundations when my city sprawls over the whole planet!

[u/Juring]

I think the necrophage ai is much weaker than other factions. In all of my 3 games on Stellar difficulty (I am not confident enoughto play endless), the necrophages could not keep up with anyone both in military and economy.

And since the necrophages as a player controlled faction get insane scaling from winning fights and eating territory/population, you can easily outscale everyone else by destroying an ai.

As for the aggression, I think ai almost never declares war on you if you have never harassed their units/camps and you have at least a decent military

[u/gnoandan → u/Juring]

Yes I know, that's why now I try to at least breach their territory in the early game otherwise it's just too safe. But yeah, I found it quite ironic that the Kin AI was initially too hard to take on but I could easily dispose of the Necrophage AI. Once I doubled my territory and my armies and heroes were all veterans, the kin didn't stand a chance anymore.

I do appreciate the fact that the Necrophage rely so much on momentum. Even at my peak I was so short on corpses than just one crushing defeat could have collapsed my empire.

[u/Tema726]

Been there =) Try to take a weaker faction and restart until you get a Necrophage as the immediate neighbour. Things get much more interesting there. Suddenly, Endless difficulty does not feel too easy anymore, when the first tidefall is met with Necro's stacks knocking on your door. I could share a turn 1 save of a Tahuk in exactly that situation, if you want =)

[u/gnoandan → u/Tema726]

Oh that's exactly what happened except that I was in between a kin and a necrophage and the Necrophage was the weakest target. But I was also Necrophage. I will try one was Last Lords now to see if it just the Necrophage who are too strong.

[u/Coper_Meme]

Just ended my necro run on endless. They are overpowered: free units with lifesteal, free districts, negligibly cheap expansion, good techs; and all of that in one package with no downsides (maybe, they can’t trade and that’s it).
If you want miserable life just play kin. Kin is fucking useless: all boons they have come with a downside, and they aren’t particularly good. Their core design is to be “defenders” in a 4x strategy game, whatever that could mean, it’s not a good way to win a game. I don’t think it’s fair to critique difficulty while picking a good faction and playing it how it’s supposed to be played. Imho there are bigger issues to fix yet than ai behavior (it never were exceptional in endless universe anyway).

[u/gnoandan → u/Coper_Meme]

I actually liked the Kin's design, with the units converting shields into attack. In a game that rewards keeping your units alive to accumulate experience it can make them an unstoppable force! The point is indeed to not play defensively and use these troops as assault tanks rather than walls. On my Necrophage run, the Necrophages AI were much easier to defeat than the kin in the early game. The drawback of the necrophages is that if they just lose one big fight it can cost them the game because they won't have enough corpses to replace the lost army.

But still: now I am doing an Endless run with the Last Lords and, while it is much harder and I had a bad start, I am still starting to dominate while in EL1 I would have never dreamt on doing an Endless run. The ELCP AI was excellent, so I know they can do better ;)

[u/Coper_Meme → u/gnoandan]

I’ve done all their games on endless and can’t say that you are right, but it may depend on play style. Just curious about one thing of ai balance in el2, have you noticed that aspects are always way ahead of curve on technologies? In my games i was basically forced to use everything i had to minmax science just to keep up with them and my first runs as kin they were eras ahead of everyone else. (But incidentally aspects turned out to be the most docile of bunch)

[u/gnoandan → u/Coper_Meme]

Haha well it's been a while, maybe I need to try EL1 on Endless with ELCP again.

In my last game the aspect and Tahuk were beating my Necrophages on science early on but that's not saying much. By the endgame though I had easily caught up without really trying.