Blatant AI exploits, after 3 DLCs and many patches

[BladeofSharpness]

I'm not sure I understand what's going on here in terms of balance. I could use (but I'm refraining from doing it with added house rules) obvious cheesy tactics against the AI. How can this not possibly be spotted and fixed for a long time?

My setting: Very Hard AI, very big map. Slow game. I'm in for the long game. So you have time to develop, invest, expand a lot!

First exploit, obvious, send scouts and claim wild sectors touching landmarks. Basically each claimed sector prevents all around it the AI to expand, except if it dares get 4 CB points, which you could ask to pay back or alternatively use for war. In all cases, most of the time, the AI will be much slowed before daring to annex a sector you claimed, so that's a win, for only 20 influences.

But this one is the less outrageous one. I present you with the ultimate cheese. Ask for a 10 turns treaty to build in claimed sectors. I got my last one for 2 cents basically, i.e. 75 energy.

Then spam outposts, caging the AIs all around them and develop like crazy your road network and buffer outposts. No more CB issued. 75 energy for 10 turns.

This is so unbalanced! I have to restrict myself or I would basically ruin my own game doing that, but it somehow bothers me that with such a patched and DLC'ed game, you still game these basic exploits.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

Bunch of factors.

a) AI's always hard to make in strategy games, real-time and turn-based. It's legit just an enormous sinkhole of budget and devtime, and there's limits to how much people can really do with it.

b) Triumph is a small studio.

c) People have different ideas of what constitutes a game-ruining exploit and what's just a cool trick to find.

[sandman25dcsss]

If you want challenge, disable diplomacy by setting teams in advanced options.

[NerdExtrodinare]

Maybe don't purposely use exploits that you are literally calling an exploit?

[BladeofSharpness]

I don't use these, I'm reporting them. And there is no excuse for balancing so badly the costs associated with setting up outposts around an empire. How it's possible that a studio doing games since what? 15+ years (and I was around at this time, happily playing AOW1) could think that 75 energy is ok to forfeit the right from receiving 4 CB points each time you drop an outpost adjacent to one of their sector?

I believe indeed my next game will be with Teams, diplomacy is a failure again.

[sandman25dcsss]

For me the worst diplomacy exploit is getting literally hundreds of cosmite by trading contacts and then being allied to almost everyone because even the hardest Ai is too peaceful and is afraid of your heavily cosmited army. So my typical setup is:
1) teams
2) no water at all, AI builds too many ships which are useless
3) no victory conditions

[BladeofSharpness]

I believe these are much needed settings and I'll probably use them in my next game!

[Janthis]

The AI cannot think and react like a human, there will always be more or less obvious weaknesses to exploit if you're willing to do it.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by BladeofSharpness:

I believe these are much needed settings and I'll probably use them in my next game!

Also if you want fair play, never build residential sectors because this is what AI does.

[BladeofSharpness]

Good point. What happens to Team when the Invasion begins? Nothing much more, they stay as is?

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by BladeofSharpness:

Good point. What happens to Team when the Invasion begins? Nothing much more, they stay as is?

Oh, I forgot to mention, disable invasion, invasion splits preset teams into 2 teams, basically you will need to fight the invaders to keep challenge.
Also AI cannot use grail so disable it too. Personally I disable all events also because they can change too much and I like predictability.

[Obsidian Shadow]

As you gain experience, the game gets easier.
If they make it too hard, they will alienate average players.

Using influence to build outposts has an opportunity cost. You reduce the rate of reputation gain with minor factions and recruitment of their units. You gain something and lose something.
Expansion is the way to win. Good for you if you are better at it than the AI.

One thing I noticed playing the second Oathbound campaign mission is how hard the game becomes when you have a really bad planet with an extreme number of abyssal rifts and lots of marauders roaming around your territory. So maybe you can modify your initial game settings to make it more challenging.

Give your hero a handicap, chose voidbringer invaders at the earliest possible time, increase the frequency of unpredictable events. The more chaos you have, the harder the game becomes. It slows your expansion and economy. You can set up a game with no hero resurgence and have to research the op and spend energy to resurrect them if they die in battle. I think the game offers lots of options to increase the difficulty and most people can probably find a difficulty level they are comfortable with.

I feel the game is fine as it is, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

[sandman25dcsss]

The hardest planets can happen in empire mode, for instance, there is a planet trait which changes all marauders into voidbringers.
Voidbringers are completely unbalanced and break the game, ask those Dvar units with 60+ HP, 10 armor and 0 shield which were one-shot from range 9.
The best option for resurgence is "autobattle only", this way AI heroes enjoy resurgence while human players don't have it.