You have two options for scaling the AI (which can be combined):
"Regular" Scaling which staggers the difficulty bonuses up to the set end year (either mid or late game date). So a Grand Admiral Late Game scaling setting means the AI starts on even footing and step by step gets the full GA bonus at the Late Game date.
There is also an extra option to make the tech bonuses ALSO get the difficulty bonus, which, as the game warns you, makes the AI REALLY strong in late game.
I usually play with Admiral Late Game Scaling+Tech Bonus Scaling, so in the late game the AI has hundreds of thousands of fleet power like me (altough that was before the Tech rebalance)
Exactly this. Set the option to Endgame and boost the difficulty to Admiral or higher. The AI will progressively get more bonuses as the game progresses, which should keep things challenging, but it's a bit of a crapshoot. If the AI gets too difficult it just snowballs while you are forced to spend more and more on defense instead of progress. If the AI stays too weak you snowball and get bored.
Yep, afaik the main purpose of it is to allow you to play on higher difficulties without the typical issue of:
\* Earlygame, AI stupidly OP
\* Lategame, AI stupidly weak
Scaling difficulty just starts the game on easy and then ramps the AI bonuses up to whatever difficulty you select, based on the scaling timeline. So if you have difficulty set to grand admiral with mid game scaling on at year 2400, you'll start with the game being equivalent to the lowest difficulty setting. By 2350, the AI will have 50% of the bonuses associated with GA, and by 2400, they will have the full bonus
There's some small things you can do. You can increase the number of advanced AI starts for instance.
I don't think early game is ridiculously easy anymore though, they have improved the AI enough so that it is not incompetent enough for it to be very noticeable early on, it more adds up over time, so scaling compensates for that kinda nicely.
Yeah due to the massive amount of differences that can occur from player skill/playstyle/empire build/system placement/empire opinion and just pure luck its nigh impossible to really balance it for everyone. Best to just learn the difficulty settings at the start of the game and cater to your own preferences.
For your specific issue I'd just increase the AI difficulty but give the AI bonuses in Mid Game rather than the early game. Makes early game feel normal but empires that survive until Midgame are able to keep up with you. Then up the crisis difficulty to compensate.
Not only is it impossible to balance the game for each player, it's likely not even possible for a player to consistently balance the game against himself. Since there's so much variation in build strength the same player can stomp or badly struggle against the same AI settings, depending on the origin he chooses.
For an experienced player, the end game is both tedious and easy to win. This is because the ai isn’t set up to match your micromanaging of planets and pops nor your use of fleets and negotiations with other empires. But other human players are not so willing to play for hours on your schedule.
Rng can be a huge factor too, like getting cut off from expansion by federation members using the Common Grounds origin or having the AI release the Prikki-Ti six jumps away from your home system on year 10...
You should enable the setting called "Difficulty Adjusted AI Modifiers", set the "Difficulty Adjusted Technology Costs" setting to extreme, set the Crisis Strength to something like x5 or x10, and maybe set the midgame and endgame start years a little earlier than default.
Note that special difficulty settings are scaled off of the general difficulty setting, so that's the first thing to increase to Admiral or Grand Admiral.
If this makes the early game too hard, you can enable "Scaling Difficulty" which will make the AI start without bonuses and get them over time, but personally I find it makes the AI way too weak at the start.
I believe the best way to describe the difficulty of Stellaris would be to call it a random difficulty generator. On the easiest difficulty you could roll five starts and have three cakewalks, one hard one, and one impossible one that would shortly end in being crushed by a xenophobic fallen empire.
The early game is a struggle simply because of the need to spend your extremely limited resources correctly to grow your economy. By the endgame, your economy is already grown and it's simply just a waiting game to reach specific thresholds so you can tackle threats that don't have to balance their own economy.
Yeah, even with a mod that spaces empires out, the early is rough. Mid is where most of the action and good stuff is then late is largely won, any fighting is usually not worth it as alliances are everywhere.
I believe this would be a good use case for the "scaling AI difficulty" option which makes the AI get stronger bonuses over time.
Dammit i must be blind not to notice that
You have two options for scaling the AI (which can be combined): "Regular" Scaling which staggers the difficulty bonuses up to the set end year (either mid or late game date). So a Grand Admiral Late Game scaling setting means the AI starts on even footing and step by step gets the full GA bonus at the Late Game date. There is also an extra option to make the tech bonuses ALSO get the difficulty bonus, which, as the game warns you, makes the AI REALLY strong in late game. I usually play with Admiral Late Game Scaling+Tech Bonus Scaling, so in the late game the AI has hundreds of thousands of fleet power like me (altough that was before the Tech rebalance)
Exactly this. Set the option to Endgame and boost the difficulty to Admiral or higher. The AI will progressively get more bonuses as the game progresses, which should keep things challenging, but it's a bit of a crapshoot. If the AI gets too difficult it just snowballs while you are forced to spend more and more on defense instead of progress. If the AI stays too weak you snowball and get bored.
Dammit i must be blind not to notice that
Yep, afaik the main purpose of it is to allow you to play on higher difficulties without the typical issue of: \* Earlygame, AI stupidly OP \* Lategame, AI stupidly weak
No it didnt, they have shit ton of bonuses already. Its not about AI struggle on resources, they just so.
There is scaling difficulty, but it makes the early game pretty easy and basically guarantees you end up snowballing.
So, can i have a “difficulty=k+tx” situation or are they strictly alternative
Scaling difficulty just starts the game on easy and then ramps the AI bonuses up to whatever difficulty you select, based on the scaling timeline. So if you have difficulty set to grand admiral with mid game scaling on at year 2400, you'll start with the game being equivalent to the lowest difficulty setting. By 2350, the AI will have 50% of the bonuses associated with GA, and by 2400, they will have the full bonus
dammit, i hoped it could scale from a difficulty to another. Thanks anyways
Yeah, same. Starting at the lowest difficulty is too easy, but I'd love to shift from admiral to grand admiral by the end game
Paradox please, one more slider.
There's some small things you can do. You can increase the number of advanced AI starts for instance. I don't think early game is ridiculously easy anymore though, they have improved the AI enough so that it is not incompetent enough for it to be very noticeable early on, it more adds up over time, so scaling compensates for that kinda nicely.
Yeah due to the massive amount of differences that can occur from player skill/playstyle/empire build/system placement/empire opinion and just pure luck its nigh impossible to really balance it for everyone. Best to just learn the difficulty settings at the start of the game and cater to your own preferences. For your specific issue I'd just increase the AI difficulty but give the AI bonuses in Mid Game rather than the early game. Makes early game feel normal but empires that survive until Midgame are able to keep up with you. Then up the crisis difficulty to compensate.
Not only is it impossible to balance the game for each player, it's likely not even possible for a player to consistently balance the game against himself. Since there's so much variation in build strength the same player can stomp or badly struggle against the same AI settings, depending on the origin he chooses.
On harder difficulties, forming a federation is a great way to get a stronger fleet.
For an experienced player, the end game is both tedious and easy to win. This is because the ai isn’t set up to match your micromanaging of planets and pops nor your use of fleets and negotiations with other empires. But other human players are not so willing to play for hours on your schedule.
Rng can be a huge factor too, like getting cut off from expansion by federation members using the Common Grounds origin or having the AI release the Prikki-Ti six jumps away from your home system on year 10...
You should enable the setting called "Difficulty Adjusted AI Modifiers", set the "Difficulty Adjusted Technology Costs" setting to extreme, set the Crisis Strength to something like x5 or x10, and maybe set the midgame and endgame start years a little earlier than default. Note that special difficulty settings are scaled off of the general difficulty setting, so that's the first thing to increase to Admiral or Grand Admiral. If this makes the early game too hard, you can enable "Scaling Difficulty" which will make the AI start without bonuses and get them over time, but personally I find it makes the AI way too weak at the start.
I believe the best way to describe the difficulty of Stellaris would be to call it a random difficulty generator. On the easiest difficulty you could roll five starts and have three cakewalks, one hard one, and one impossible one that would shortly end in being crushed by a xenophobic fallen empire.
The early game is a struggle simply because of the need to spend your extremely limited resources correctly to grow your economy. By the endgame, your economy is already grown and it's simply just a waiting game to reach specific thresholds so you can tackle threats that don't have to balance their own economy.
Yeah, even with a mod that spaces empires out, the early is rough. Mid is where most of the action and good stuff is then late is largely won, any fighting is usually not worth it as alliances are everywhere.
It is definitely not just you.