I do sometimes see advice for winning on Suicidal offered up on the forums by players with no track record of Suicidal wins that I find doubtful, misleading, or less than complete...So, I think it is important to reality check what people are really doing. It's really easy to say people are winning because they are doing X, but its been my experience that the reality is closer to they are doing A,B,C and D, not doing M,N,O, or P, letting them now do X,Y, or Z. Which, makes easy solutions not easy! I do not envy you this task.

I would highly encourage looking at what the players are actually doing to win on Suicidal, by checking with the players who have the appropriate track records. There is a fairly decent sized list of players whom have demonstrated this capacity over time. I suspect most, if not all, would be willing to share with the Stardock what they are doing if asked (although some might want PMs or e-mails). A few have offered up consistently good advice on the forums over time that tend to give it out in digestible chunks. Getting this information doesn't necessarily offer up a solution (and I doubt there is a complete solution), but at least there would be a clear understanding of the methods and means. This might point out some design changes to toughen up the system.

In the Suicidal game AAR, I included saved game files for this very reason. Some of things I'm doing I don't even notice anymore. Many of the things I'm doing have to be taken in context, and are not necessarily easy to explain or implement without something solid to grasp on to. Of course, I may be helping to increase the pool of Suicidal players, making your jobs even harder!

Insightful. I agree and think this is a pretty good way of toughening things up.

Cari may i make a small suggestion to help counter sneak attacks! My idea is to bring in a new class or 'bolt-on' for a ship that would allow a planet to produce mine fields. These mine fields would act like a barrier around a planet and stop, or at least reduce, sneak attacks from being made.
Another option would be to add a new class of ship that would 'orbit' its production planet and act like a defence platform. These platforms could contain offensive and defensive modules but no engines etc and not take up any space in the production queue for the planet. You could over a period of time build many of these and make it a lot harder to penetrate a planet for invasion.

Just a couple of thoughts for you to ponder over

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About the engine nerf : I'm mostly playing on large and smaller maps, but it seems the only one one who complains about the engines are those playing on larger maps. I find the actual values correct, as they make for a strategic decision. We need to chose between more weapons or engines, while in DL putting a lot of engines was a no-brainer.

My suggestion : Do exactly like for range, and make the engines scale with the map size. This way those who play gigantic (or the even larger planned for TA) maps can have their ships zooming around at speed > 20, while those playing on small maps will not see speed > 10 ships going from one corner of the galaxy to the other in few turns.

Then everyone will be happy! Yay!

So that's what this is all about? The answer, then, has to be to improve the AI's ability to deal with the possibility of sneak attacks, instead of building up a baroque set of artificial game mechanics to compensate for that lack.



So the devs have just given up on being able to improve the AI's ability to deal with sneak attacks?! Ack!

Well, ultimately it was about making it harder for people to win suicidal games, because I gather that people had been complaining that it was too easy, and Brad was under the impression that this was because they were using sneak attacks, which is a weakness of the AI. 

Well, I actually meant that I think that we're not going to be trying to prevent sneak attacks by imposing limitations on the player. 

 

Actually I previously left the implied part of this question unanswered because I have one very germane question of my own.

Who are these people who are complaining that it's too easy to beat the AI on Suicidal about which you speak? Frankly I haven't heard any such complaints since The game is too easy thread from about 15 months ago.

Personally I find Suicidal plenty challenging enough thank you very much. If you're really insistent on having an absolutely unbeatable level then the answer is very simple. Create a new level where the AI get's a 300% bonus to *everything*, you could call it genocidal. If there's still some complaints then you can go to the 400% bonus level, perhaps you could call this omniscient. Still more difficulty desired? How about 500%. Last I heard we really aren't in any danger of running out of numbers.


Again, Why?

By the same analogy that you've stated why penalize players that are perfectly happy with suicidal as currently implemented. Let those that have become bored or otherwise find suicidal beneath them play at a higher level but there are many that find suicidal plently challenging enough.

I definitly agree with sliding scale. Also PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE (I'm on my knee's begging) keep the Right of Passage Treaty. I think Espionage needs to be improved, because current espionage isn't as potent as let's ay having the ability to cause a planetary revolt or foment unhappines. Uhm not to pick at the game. I'm all for having less knowledge and mine fields about the other races. Most importantly I think sneak attacks should be allowed simply because the more open and nonlinear the enviroment the better. Maybe allow the computer on Suicidal levels do Sneak Attacks. So people will be less willing to move their armies.

I'm extremely against making ships move only once per turn.  I play on Medium galaxies and I still find it tedious waiting for my ships to reach their targets, and I managed to talk Brad out of it today.  So no.

 

I made this same suggestion about a year ago. It received complaint, although as far as I could tell, most complaint was from players of medium galaxies and below. The gist of the complaint was that if you desire to play on a grand scale then you *should* crawl across the galaxy. My response that although I wish to play on a grand scale I do not wish to maximize the tedium of the game that is already in copious supply basically fell on deaf ears.

I don't know.  I've been so busy that I only randomly check some of the most recent posts, or what kryo points out to me.  Brad reads a lot of different sites, though, it's possible that people are still complaining elsewhere.

 

Not sure where the elsewhere would be if not here but be that as it may. Let's say I grant that there are folks that think winning at suicidal is too easy. Again I ask what is so magical about the suicidal level that essentially draws a line in the sand and says OK I'll give the AI bonus up to this point but no further.

I could easily complain that winning on Tough is too easy. Would your response in this case be to figure out ways to make Tough more difficult? No you wouldn't because of the aforementioned concern about the players that are perfectly OK with lower levels as they are coupled with the fact that you can merely suggest folks can increase their difficulty level. The only thing unique about Suicidal is that it's currently the highest level. Of all the possible solutions to the game being too easy what could be easier to implement than adding another level above suicidal?

Any chance we can still get the culture zone of control thing as an option? I like it for gameplay as much as difficulty reasons. As it is, the tactical side of the game is just too easy, and culture is irrelevant if you are sufficiently aggressive. Any marginal increase in difficulty on this point would be appreciated.

I actually agree with this. I was going on the assumption that the powers that be were unhappy with the current state of Suicidal gaming and were looking to add additional challenges. I haven't seen anybody complaining about Suicidal was easy ever.

Having just slowly worked my way up to that level myself, I find myself hanging on by my fingernails for a good chunk of the game and don't require any additional difficulty, thank you... However, I've always kind of felt that it's too easy to get detailed info on your enemies, so I made that a suggestion.

Yup i agree Marshall. I have always wanted to come up against an opponent whom i know nothing about. It is very easy at present to know exactly what your opponent has installed on his ships and a simple removing of this knowledge (or making it so a spy on a spaceport could possibly uncover the plans for 'X' ship) would be more advantageous than moving ships all over the map. I am not fond of that idea at all and although i like the idea of the war button i would prefer some different approach to the penalty of declaring war rather than just moving all of my ships away. Hence the aforementioned minefield idea!

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Perhaps an alternate solution: lacking right of passage disallows you from moving your military ships within x parsecs of an inhabited planet owned by that civ. If that would result in no possible paths (or a highly unoptimal one) speed is reduced to 1, as proposed. Basically, making the movement cost in the A* search (or whatever pathfinding algorithm you're using) maxspeed-1 within the disallowed radius.

It'd still allow for sneak attacks, especially once ships started getting faster, but it would give the AI plenty of time to get their own ships in position before it would become an issue.

Personally I think sneak attacks are much too powerful. I always butcher my opponents with them, but am never on the receiving end.

I think the key here is to allow sneak attacks but have it COST you something. The obvious cost is Diplomacy rating on everyone else in the game (hey ... word travels fast).

But how would you define what constitutes a sneak attack? As a rough approximation I would say the following boolean yields an approximate answer

1) Is this ship attacking when it started the war within the enemy's space AND within X spaces of a target?

If so, then everytime that ship attacks your diplomacy rating takes a beating.

So how does a ship considered to be sneak attacking ever cease being a sneak attack ship? Well - you could have a flat number of turns decide this with perhaps a sliding scale based on the size of the universe.

Just my 2 BC

Dano

Personally I like CariElf's proposed solution in the first post. It's far from the desired outcome i.e. the AI being able to defend well against sneak attacks. Frankly even with border relocation it's still pretty easy to do sneak attacks although not as devastating on the 1st turn of war.

Yes it may not be realistic, but it will help the AI which is all I really care about.

If the AI was capable of making devastating sneak attacks then the change wouldn't be needed... although a human will likely be able to respond to a buildup of forces better than the AI.

No probs. As far as I can tell it's always been an issue with the powers that be and have really never understood the apparent desire to have a level of the game that's unbeatable.

The idea of providing a range of difficulties is as standard in TBS games as it is a great idea. Frankly I think this is a credible game to play at any difficulty level pretty much from tough and above. Playing a particular difficulty level can be as much a matter of preference as galaxy size or victory condition or any other setting of the game perhaps even more so.

No one would come along and say that they thought the players playing at Tough have it too easy and should be forced to play a more difficult game. In the same way I find it objectionable to be forced to play a more difficult game than the level I've come to prefer.

Although I can win at suicidal I've never said it's been easy. I also am leery of increasing the difficulty of suicidal and thereby leaving a void where I can't win at the new suicidal but I find obscene too easy.

I have no problem with providing more challenge to those that truly find one lacking at the current level of suicidal. More power to them, but to do so at the expense of those that are comfortable at suicidal is just as objectionable as forcing all those that play at tough to move up to the next level.

I can't really presume to know the how's or why's of the implementation details but to simply have a new higher level where the AI's started out with more bonus than they do at suicidal seems like an easy thing to do and I'm sure the result would be a more challenging game. This doesn't force me to either lower or raise my game in order to provide more of a challenge to those that wish it. However, I honestly have seen no real evidence on these forums for any great outcry for a more difficult game.

A way to define 'sneak attack' for the purposes of diplomatic penalties would simply be a player taking one or more planets within the first few turns of a war declaration.
Make the diplomatic penalties universal.

Has anyone considered a universal tactics rating for the ai to follow when assessing threats? I.e. number of planets taken/(number*quality of ships destroyed)?

I would also like to have the option to have diplomatic penalties determined by the size of the player civ as a % of total civ power, so that diplomatic oppositon rises as you begin to dominate.

I would also just like to reiterate that I'd like to see these rules changes as 'options' atleast for a more balanced game, militarily challenging game.

If cari wants to de-nerf engines, I would like to make that optional as well, or atleast boost the tactical difficulty at any given difficulty level to compensate. I like the speed balance as is quite frankly.

"I don't agree with this on the grounds that borders in space really don't make sense and trying to enforce a border system would be a micromanagement mess."

well borders in space seem to make a whole lotta sense for shows like star trek and babylon 5 and nearly every other spaced based scifi show so why wouldn't it in a video game? a video game that operates in only a two dimensional plane mind you. I'm not buying into that argument. civ 4 enforces their border system without much micro management, i don't see why this game can't, especially since regardless of it being in space we're still playing only on a 2d plane like civ4.

Question- why is it you just can't make it where ships in enemy controlled territory can be attacked by anyone who wishes to unless there is a RoP treaty? (With a relations hit of course) AI wouldn't know how to handle it? I think the idea I mentioned is the best combination of realism and mechanical effectiveness. You could still sneak attack to a point, but you couldn't just park your battle fleet outside the planet, with transports set to race in once the fleet is detroyed. The AI could form a force and whittle down the battle fleet first.

I would also seperate the cultural influence borders and territorial borders. I think that needs to be done.

I'd suggesting having an option as well- with two ideas, you're more likely to get one good one. I think a three-part option would be best.

Beg pardon if I missed someone else mentioning this, but why not make these new passage treaties a matter of your diplo status? Many of us have asked for more in the diplo area, and such a change could make most of the worries in this thread moot.

I'm asking this bucause A) I am not interested in the Suicidal question because I believe GC2's greatest virtue is having AIs worth playing against on equal terms, and I like the SF that I follow to be merciful with my ability to suspend disbelief and this proposal's potential for peta-lightyear teleportation is a little hard on me given what I know of the backstory for the game. It seems that at minimum we'd need a mega-event to make this scenario work, aesthetically speaking. Teleports like that are Precusor stuff.

I play crippling, but I feel that this is as good an opportunity as any to say that the AI simply is not effective at fighting war.

In my last game, I defeated the AI using only battleships and dreadnoughts, very rarely in pairs. The truth was while the Thalan Dreadnoughts I was facing were extremely tough, the AI never took them out of orbit to fight me, never proactively went after me, and never put the units into fleets.

The AI does not adapt to what the player is doing militarily. If I am researching x weapon type and y defense, the AI needs to work harder to counter that. If I am moving past it militarily, and it sees me as a potential threat, it should shift its focus onto that matter.

It really doesn't, as far as I've seen. I could be totally wrong.

One of the biggest issues is that the AI does not sanitize an area before attacking with transports, and the transports are simply to few.

So while there are things you could change in the way the game is played to fix this, I tend to think that it is an issue with the (amazing) AI.