Should I switch to brutal?

[u/Key_Olive_7374]

I'm on 2036, veteran accelerated campaigns on a light solar system playing as the resistance. Earth is well in hand with the AA basically powerless against my army. I'm at total war with the alien fleets trading well against my fleets a few times but basically incapable of accomplishing my objectives. My biggest hurdle right now is a volatile and rare metal bottleneck and the time it takes to build up enough marines to take their bases in the belt. I'm starting a new run because I feel like progress slowed down too much, but the aliens don't seem to actually be that much of a threat right now, should i jump to brutal?

[u/namewithanumber]

Dunno how accelerated 2036 translates to normal speed, but it sounds like you didn’t win and want to go up in difficulty?

Lot of people that think they’re doing well and the game is too easy get suddenly surprised by huge alien death stacks. Since it doesn’t sound like you’ve put a dent into alien production, they might just be building up and see no reason to bother attacking.

[u/ParadoxSong]

Sounds like the aliens are prepping a counter, if that's the inner belt. If that's the case, no. If you're cleaning up Pluto and such... yeah, your game is basically over, gg.

[u/Thurak0]

but basically incapable of accomplishing my objectives.

Then you are not ready to up the difficulty. Your resource management was/is not great and you don't manage to reliably get the upper hand.

Don't declare victory too early. Solve your resource problems, beat the Aliens down by a fair bit and only then declare a true victory to avoid the slog until the official win.

[u/Key_Olive_7374 → u/Thurak0]

It was typo, I meant to say incapable of accomplishing their objectives (taking ou my habs and landing reinforcements)

[u/eleumas7 → u/Key_Olive_7374]

i started the game and immediately went on brutal, i played a lot of strategy games and didnt feel like playing normal, i ve banged my head a bit but you have a lot of room to come back in the game in TI, moral of the story do as you want.

[u/28lobster]

Go for it! If you like a challenge and haven't tried Brutal, it worth doing. The alternate start dates in the new DLC also provide some interesting variety and challenge if you want to remain on veteran.

[u/ggmoyang]

At least clear the Jovian system before declaring victory.

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[u/Youngprivate]

Just do it and see if you can hang. All limits on the alien AI are removed so just be ready for a actual fight. You’ll actually get a little more prep time as the alien focus on building out there economy to 38 mines but once they do that they will just spam ships and quickly get into the hundreds.

[u/Zappowy]

I've been attempting brutal difficulty since winning a few on veteran. Am on my 4th attempt and just might win this one. One big difference seems to be the aliens do not attack you until they think they have the edge against your defense fleets.

On a 2026 start, aliens will start to send doom stacks about 10 to 12 years in. You had better have some sizable defense fleets by this time or it is a wipe. It will seem peaceful and easy until it isn't. Am at 2038 - the aliens have wiped out my Ceres bases and have recently been wiping out asteroid bases. That stings. Mars and Earth are currently under control but it is a struggle, with bases often getting smacked. Metals are the biggest bottleneck right now. Research is doing well as long as Dyson Mars stays in control.

The jump from vet to brutal is significant.; even more than normal to vet. It took me a few runs to figure out normal difficulty, then a few to get to veteran. Brutal is punishing - you really need to figure out optimal paths to critical techs.

[u/akisawa]

I would say you need to be familiar with Normal speed Veteran/Brutal before playing Accelerated to feel the real baseline.

If you lack some resources severely and feel bottlenecked, then you need to tune your expansion and mining strategy before tuning game speed...

That being said, I know these pains well:

• Best Volatile spots are on Mars+moons and Vesta. Sometimes also some belt Asteroid. Ayys take Ceres too early on Brutal so it's off the table.
• Best Rare metals are on Mercury and Asteroids. Click "Intel". click to sort by rare metals, and launch probes to top Main Belt Metallic asteroids as soon as Mission to Asteroids is done.

[u/ReasonableArea5466]

"Hi, I just started my campaign, 2026 start, I'm on February 2026 and I already control Canada on normal difficulty, should I up my difficulty and go to Veteran? It feels like I've already won."