How can the difficulty level change up matches?

[Auron]

Probably not the best way to word the question, so hopefully some details help. I know that the difficulty just changes the rate at which enemies gain resources, research, build, etc. I'm wondering what difficulty is ideal to play on when I want to have more tense games throughout. I play on Normal and while the early and sometimes mid game can be tense, by late game I have a few fleets, capital ships, and my titan and it just becomes a slow steam roll as I wipe the other empires out.

I want to have games where I can get outplayed, lose planets not through use of super weapons, actually be concerned if I see large fleets approaching my planets, maybe even lose a battle once in awhile. Can upping the difficulty to hard change that or is the AI unable to do that in games due to limitations? Any tips are appreciated :)

[Fluke]

Of course it can. I can steamroll hard but unfair is a bit tricky.

[Auron]

I'm going to give playing on Hard a try, see how much more interesting it makes the games.

[GoaFan77]

Originally posted by AGamerX1:

I'm going to give playing on Hard a try, see how much more interesting it makes the games.

Snowballing is an issue with every game, though Sins perhaps not intentionally has a unique way to fix it. When you save a game and restart it, you can actually change the difficulty levels of the AI in the start up screen. That means in theory if you hate early combat and can only do normal but want more of a challenge later on, just save the game when you're established and notch up the difficulty.

That said I would definitely encourage you to try and start out on hard, I find that being preasured early game is when the game is most fun. I just got done with a multiplayer 5v5 and I'm not as good against early rushes as I should be, I lost my original homeworld twice but I held my ground and with some help of my allies I managed to recover, liberate my homeworld, take the enemy homeworld and eventually we won the game. Granted, the AI probably won't be quite that interesting, but you get the idea.

[Auron]

Yeah I'm playing the Triple Entente map with all hard AI to see how it varies up, then I'll likely give a FFA a try and see how much different it becomes when you can't rely on allies from the start. Thanks for the tip :)

[Zelteros]

yes, they best option is to save then up the difficulty when the chalenge starts to fade :)