AI cheats in this game

[gargonaught]

Set small galaxy and ensign difficulty (which is supposed to be even for AI and Player)

Yet very early an AI empire wars me and fields upwards of 4000-5000 fleet while I only have 1100. This is with building ships as fast as could get the materials to do so.

I have played Games akin to these over many many years and all have had cheating AI in someway, but i figured in 2024 game devs would have learned from the past and not given AI civs hidden cheat ability, it annoys people to no end and will eventually kill your game.

Least I didn't pay full price, the only good thing from it so far.

If you want a good game better to pick lowest hardness, probably be closer to equal ,AI vs Player, than ensign is.

Good Luck o/

[Elitewrecker PT]

Did you remove advanced starts?
It could also be a scripted event empire like Prikiki-ti which spawn and rapidly build big fleets.

[gargonaught]

No, didn't know there was an extra setting for that, figured setting difficulty would auto disable AI getting any bonuses.

Played over 10 diff games for learning stellaris, figured I had it all down, didn't know I also needed to learn the options before starting ;/

Thanks for that bit of info.

[Elitewrecker PT]

You don't have to change any options if you don't want to.
Advanced starts are there as an extra challenge. If you play an easy difficulty without advanced starts you'll just steamroll everyone.

[gargonaught]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

You don't have to change any options if you don't want to.
Advanced starts are there as an extra challenge. If you play an easy difficulty without advanced starts you'll just steamroll everyone.

I don't get your point, did I say I wanted to steamroll the AI?

I said the AI cheats, therefore an even game isn't possible, so easy difficulty would even it out with a cheating AI.

However now I know there are further options I need to disable for equalness all over the Galaxy, we all start with the same....Hopefully, I still don't trust the devs didn't give Stellaris AI some extraness in cheatyness.

[Elitewrecker PT]

I didn't say you said you wanted to.
I was just explaining that players might want to toggle advanced starts to ensure they have a challenge later on even in lower difficulties.

[Hebrux]

Originally posted by gargonaught:

AI Cheats in this game

Yes it does. More difficulty means the AI gets resource bonuses. At high difficulties, I always get enslaved by the AI and bide my time as a vassal until I'm strong enough not just to overthrow my overlord, but also fight the Fallen Empires

[gargonaught]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

I didn't say you said you wanted to.
I was just explaining that players might want to toggle advanced starts to ensure they have a challenge later on even in lower difficulties.

I figured I was picked up wrong.
Text chats never relay what intent is meant.

Thanks for the extra explanation though.

o/

[Elitewrecker PT]

IF you decide to toggle advanced starts, you can make sure to not toggle the advanced neighbours setting, to prevent those stronger empires from spawning near you which could lead to a difficult scenario.

[gargonaught]

Just checked settings.

The settings on that game had Advanced AI and Advanced Neighbors set to off.

The Race that started the war was a Hostile one when met and was next door.
Unless the aggressiveness slider (which I didn't touch) boosts AI resources.

If not then the only explanation is that the AI does cheat.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Well in that case we'd need more info like screenshots of their empire area and diplomacy screen.
Also, I'm not sure if this was changed, but there's one origin that spawns an advanced start of the same species as that empire, and (at least previously) that origin could spawn even with the advanced start setting at 0.

[Malkuth]

Listen the AI cheats on difficulty above Ensign. On Ensign you or the AI gets no bonus. Anything below Ensign you get bonus and AI gets Handicaps. If you want to play a fair game play Ensign difficulty, turn off advanced starts, marauders and Fallen empires. All 3 of those give you more advanced AI at start, mauraders end up being a mid game crises and fallen empires are end game. Advanced start AI are also mid game. So I suggest you shut all that off until you can recognize the threats your meeting in game, instead of saying AI cheats, which it does on higher difficulty.

There’s a lot to this game.

Even on ensign you can meet empires with 4K fleets at year 30 or more easy. They not cheating on ensign.

Don’t play on below ensign. Because it gives you bad habits.

Takes a lot of practice to keep up even on ensign, you have to understand what you need by what year. Once you figure it out you laugh how stupid the AI is. lol.

[Exothermically Eclectic]

Originally posted by gargonaught:

Yet very early an AI empire wars me and fields upwards of 4000-5000 fleet while I only have 1100. This is with building ships as fast as could get the materials to do so.

"Very early" isn't very specific, ingame year was? AI Empire was? Maybe they had a better build than you, maybe the AI played better than you, maybe they got lucky early on and snowballed, etc etc.

[gargonaught]

Lets just leave it as the AI cheats. confirmed.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Validation seeking

[Malkuth]

Originally posted by gargonaught:

Lets just leave it as the AI cheats. confirmed.

Hey if that makes you feel better go for it. They call the Ensign difficulty the role player difficulty 😉