Is there actual strategic diversity?

[Idleray]

After testing a few different sponsor combinations on apollo I'm still getting the same tried-and-true vanilla BE strategy coming on top and setting benchmarks.

Artists/Tectonic Scanner/Worker with a prosperity opening then dipping a bit into Industry then going into knowledge (or whatever really since at this stage you're already winning).

Health is much less of an issue than before so Eudaimonia from Prosperity is not as required (or perhaps completely unnecessary) and I find myself going for Nature's bounty alot more often instead.

My opening tends to be 2 explorers and then OER because of reliably OP artifact combos (here's looking at quantum politics).


I'm finding standard size maps to pretty much equivalent to a free win since the massive abundance of space means you can pretty much do whatever you want. Setting up 20 cities by Turn 150 is easy.

Small size maps are a lot more challenging and that's where I found that you can't really mess around with cute strats: it's pretty much Prosperity opener so you can afford to do a fast early expand before it starts upsetting AIs.

 

[Chaleb]

Have you tried water starts? You can be a lot more liberal with what you start out with (for example your not locked into artists nearly as much as in land), and while you're still gonna probably want to start with Prosperity from there you can do pretty much whatever you want, you can go down Might and get a bunch of science from farming aliens for example.

 

[Lord Shadow]

This is something I suggested on another thread but nobody has replied to it yet.

Have you tried lower resource settings and more hostile climates? That might help challenge in larger maps, as it'd reduce the amount of prime real state. It may also increase conflict as there would be less resources around.

 

[Eji1700]

My feeling on water starts is you go coast scanner soldier, but still grab artists because quick virtues in the early game are just too good compared to anything else. Still you tend to wind up with a ton more artifacts/expiditions and can do some intersting science stuff, but i've yet to really compare that to a more traditional opening done on the water (just do the prosperity to industry trick).

Really though I feel that the game is easy enough at this point you may be able to do whatever?

 

[Alkaid]

This is something I suggested on another thread but nobody has replied to it yet.

Have you tried lower resource settings and more hostile climates? That might help challenge in larger maps, as it'd reduce the amount of prime real state. It may also increase conflict as there would be less resources around.

I just attempted to have a hostile environment game like that the other day and was a bit disappointed at the hostility of it. I set my game to use sparse resources, glacial map type (most of the land tundra and snow), and frigid biome. (just for the complete frozen ice world theme)

I found there to still be a ton of resources, so much so I honestly didn't even notice a difference. A wealth of strategic resources everywhere as usual and plenty of things like fungi, copper and stuff too. There was definitely less good land terrain thanks to the glacial map making so much of it crappy tundra and snow, but with water expanding you could just avoid it, since water's as good/bad as any other map.

Maybe playing with the water level settings or something so there's less water to expand into would have helped fix that some.

It did get the look right though with that mix of settings. Very thematic with the new frozen biome. (aka I recommend trying that combo anyway)

 

[MadDjinn]

You can in fact do whatever you want and get similar results.

Mostly because the AI isn't very good and the affinity spam on the tech tree makes getting anything much easier.

Ofc, if you're just talking 'fastest possible win time' then the usual setup is still fine.

 

[Ryika]

Depends a lot on what your goals are. There are a ton of different cool, synergistic new strategies now, from Specialists, Alien farming, perma-war for Profit to Mass-Expanding, Trade Route Spam and Mass-Spying. All of these can easily win you the game on Apollo and a lot of possible loadout-combinatons are possible for some of these strategies.

If you're looking for really quick victories, well... seems like the game is still very one-dimensional. So if you can help it try not to measure strategies against each other and instead try how far you can push each individual one.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I think we are getting actually close to establish different viable strategies. A balance patch or two and we *might* see different stuff than just TR spam.

...that being said and considering Wonders 2.0, I am not too confident that it will happen.

 

[Furycrab]

I think we are getting actually close to establish different viable strategies. A balance patch or two and we *might* see different stuff than just TR spam.

...that being said and considering Wonders 2.0, I am not too confident that it will happen.

I'm kinda ok with Wonders 2.0 mostly because it makes an Apollo strategy not significantly different from anything lower. But ya... TR spam + progenitor wonders + spam cities pretty much anywhere and drop farms works with pretty much anyone.

I felt kinda sad when I got excited at looking at a bonus like the African Nation... Only to realize that 4-10 extra yields on your cities in the late game seems kinda weak when your city can pump 100+ of any yield on just a bunch of farmed tiles and trade routes. <.<

 

[Red Menace]

I think we are getting actually close to establish different viable strategies. A balance patch or two and we *might* see different stuff than just TR spam.

...that being said and considering Wonders 2.0, I am not too confident that it will happen.

well when they tried to curb TR spam didn't they switch the yields? small cities give huge yields and huge cities give nothing, it wasn't un-common to get NOTHING (0 energy, 0 science,) effectively making internal TRs the only choice otherwise its more productive to build energy.


Wonders-2.0 what a joke Cynosure: 1 science for every 4 population in this city, Cost: 1650 production. well if that's not garbage I don't know what is. of course many more awful wonders exist some of them are worse than buildings.

is the A.I. still pathetically dumb? I don't think it gets smarter the higher difficulty above (Vostok?) you play, just obvious bonuses.

 

[MadDjinn]

the two most simple yet powerful changes (mainly for the player) --

remove the % of currently researching tech from both pods and spies. Make them like the energy side (so for pods that'd be an RNG between set boundaries).

 

[Galgus]

It wouldn't be a panacea, but the AI being able to fight decent wars by numbers if not by tactics would be a huge help to the game's difficulty.

In my first game of Rising Tide I actually had a few declare war on me a couple of times, but they are just terrible at it.

While improving unit tactics would be ideal, the AI would be far more threatening if they amassed more units, and actively built and replaced units during war.

For unit tactics, the simplest and most impactful change would probably be to have them retreat heavily wounded units to heal them.

 

[omniclast]

Well the difference between BE and BERT seems to be that your start choices don't even matter a little bit. You can go with the worst options and then just get insane internal trade buffs/smart grid/some broken artifact turn ins and win.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

Artists now provide +2 Culture, becoming much less useful if you stay on land. Tectonic scanner is still decent but lifeform scanner is more important than before (and electromagnetic scanner from playing Starships is the absolute best now). Early science bonus (after clinic quest) vs early production from workers is close now.

 

[Dactyl]

I tried playing for a while with the 2 artists start with okay results. Then I tried starting with 2 engineers in each city. I built two explorers, giving me three, and a patrol boat right off. I relied on resource pods to give me the culture I needed to get the virtues I wanted. So far that seems to being working well.

 

[EpicWestern]

I always randomize all the starting conditions. Of course early explorers, trade routes, and expansions is the way to start regardless of what I end up with, but middle and later game I actually am finding a decent amount of diversity. Academies seem to be nerfed just enough so they're still viable but not automatic.

I also lost a few games to large navies, so its not quite as easy as to just tech straight through with only a few units.