Weak Endgame Crisis

[ZACWarrior]

This is my first long game, and I was looking forward to the endgame crisis. I played on too low of a difficulty (I realized this too late), so I wanted a challenge. The endgame crisis was upped to 1.5x strength. It finally popped up. It was The Unbidden. They were almost exactly on the opposite side of a large galaxy. I figured I would build up my fleets a little more and then go fight them when the resolution to open borders passed. Meanwhile, The Unbidden expanded to a grand total of 4 systems, and a Fallen Empire awoke and destroyed their portal within five years of the crisis starting. There goes my fun endgame challenge.

Any recommendations on what to do with settings to make this more interesting in future games? Other than just cranking up the crisis difficulty?

[corisai]

Originally posted by ZACWarrior:

Any recommendations on what to do with settings to make this more interesting in future games? Other than just cranking up the crisis difficulty?

Larger galaxy => crisis feel weaker.
Lower difficulty => crisis IS weaker.

So, yean, raise crisis difficulty. IMHO x3 is a good starting point on large maps.

[Danny]

Times 25 contingency crisis with two hubs in the middle of your territory!
You'll know what a TRUE crisis is.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Danny:

Times 25 contingency crisis with two hubs in the middle of your territory!
You'll know what a TRUE crisis is.

I would really like to see x25 End of Cycle

[yutterh]

Originally posted by ZACWarrior:

a Fallen Empire awoke and destroyed their portal within five years of the crisis starting.

Not gonna lie, that sounds pretty awesome. It was like their destiny to save the galaxy.

[Danny]

Originally posted by yutterh:

Originally posted by ZACWarrior:

a Fallen Empire awoke and destroyed their portal within five years of the crisis starting.

Not gonna lie, that sounds pretty awesome. It was like their destiny to save the galaxy.

I recently had a regular empire destroy the Prethoryn Scourge... XD

[ZeBunisher]

Originally posted by corisai:

I would really like to see x25 End of Cycle

EoC is not a crisis and would not be affected

[adobo]

Originally posted by corisai:

I would really like to see x25 End of Cycle

That isn't a crisis and only scales with how big you got before you get eaten.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Ze_Bunisher:

EoC is not a crisis and would not be affected

Originally posted by majikero:

That isn't a crisis and only scales with how big you got before you get eaten.

Jesus, folks, I'd even used a smile :) First it's all meaningless as AI would never start End of Cycle and of course it isn't a crisis.

I just tried to say it would be really funny if AI can do it (for example it will be possible for him to do with 20% chance if he ever receive end of cycle pact first and it would be set at begining of game for a whole galaxy to avoid constant EoC) & ofk with buff from crisis multiplier...

[The_Strateg1st]

I recently played a game on admiral difficulty with 1.5 crisis. The Scourge spawned in the middle of my biggest rival, I was pleased until he with the help of his allies wiped them out. I've also had games where I became so insanely powerful that I just left crisis alone because I wanted to see the 'anti-crisis'.

[Zefnoly]

Playing on Ensign on Huge Galaxy. 3x Crisis Strength. Unbidden spawned opposite side of galaxy. Grew to 5-6 systems before they started endlessly idling doing nothing at all. I actually wanted them to grow intentionally to roleplay a proper crisis playing out. But they refused to do more. All of their fleets but 1 was idling in the 5th system they captured. A planet in the system their portal arrived in was never harmed and I could even build branch offices there (pops where even growing and immigrating stil) and was never touched by the crisis or by the fact the dimensional portal shared the system. Along with an unbidden anchor starbase.

I sent my fleets to attack one of their systems to see if they would react. They did. But only to defend that system. It was the demise of all but one of their weakest fleets which was idling on their portal. Then a fallen empire came and wiped them out, but let the portal stay. I waited. Nothing came out of the portal. Then another weaker AI empire came and just killed the portal completely. Impressive 3x unbidden crisis. Never had a crisis vanish this fast. On earlier versions I had a harder time removing them on ensign with 1x crisis strength (back when I wast til learning game mechanics over a year ago) and now the AI is just broken in terms of crisis to the point where the other AI empires does it for me.

[The_Strateg1st]

The end game crisis is effected by difficulty which could in part explain why the unbidden didn't do much, Though it's more likely that there was a bug somewhere. Were they bombarding any planets? Because the unbidden always bombard planets to wipe out the population before moving on.
I did see something like this when I fought the Contingency once, (or rather didn't fight it, I let it over run a 3rd of the galaxy while I did nothing but defend my borders and my ally) in one of the areas that the Contingency spawned in it just stopped doing anything, for 5 years it just left 5 fleets idle in a few different systems. I had destroyed all his construction ships while I had fleets stationed at my allies border which I think is why the Contingency stopped expanding, they were waiting for outposts to be built which never happened.

[Zefnoly]

Originally posted by The_Strateg1st:

The end game crisis is effected by difficulty which could in part explain why the unbidden didn't do much, Though it's more likely that there was a bug somewhere. Were they bombarding any planets? Because the unbidden always bombard planets to wipe out the population before moving on.
I did see something like this when I fought the Contingency once, (or rather didn't fight it, I let it over run a 3rd of the galaxy while I did nothing but defend my borders and my ally) in one of the areas that the Contingency spawned in it just stopped doing anything, for 5 years it just left 5 fleets idle in a few different systems. I had destroyed all his construction ships while I had fleets stationed at my allies border which I think is why the Contingency stopped expanding, they were waiting for outposts to be built which never happened.

Not even bombardment was happening. There even was a planet in the system they arrived in (same system as the portal entrance) and they never touched the planet. They didnt even expand to empty systems near them. They did nothing. Once they got 5 systems they just stopped doing anything. I waited decades ingame and they did nothing. Eventually a fallen empire wiped them out. The planet in the system they arrived in was untouched and I could even build branch office there and branch office buildings.

[CrUsHeR]

I think there is a bug with the pathfinding.

Example, i had some allied fleets of significant size just sitting in a system doing nothing for the entire war. They even ignored an enemy fleet coming in and re-capturing a planet i had liberated before.

Then i also had all of my science ships breaking the auto-explore because they could not find systems to explore, even though there was plenty of unsurveyed systems after clearing up systems from a Khan rising. So i had to manually send the ships to each system.

[Argus von Stein]

The bombarding stances are just fed up. Contingency "rolls" with selective bombardment. I bet it's the same for the others. And its all a huge fing bug.