Strategy and system development

[Praylak]

I might be playing at too high a difficulty level for my skill, but I'm trying to understand how sometimes some races become uber galaxy-gods so quickly. More likely though, I'm just simply failing to keep up.

An example of this, in my last game, Large/normal speed, 9 civs. The Devoure had like 8000 EPs to my 1800 by turn 160, and I was playing Romulan. Did I drop the ball or what?

Do you guys generally replace older ships, or do you upgrade them? I find the money is better spent towards science and other areas, upgrading ships seems prohibitive but I swear the AI is doing it. It wasn't 10 turns ago I seen he was researching the tech, and then all a sudden every ship in his fleet became the current class. Where as I will be spending the next 30 turns replacing my garrisons.

Anyway I think you can see my point, and ya I could just drop the difficulty level down and out. Or I can try to understand what I'm doing wrong. Any suggestions or tips are welcome.

 

[deanej]

I've never actually played my own mod beyond testing, so I can't be too much help, but I do have the following comments:
-The Devore like espionage. Their power gives them a 25% boost to overall espionage. If they got a great spy, it's possible they infiltrated you.
-Like regular BtS, the AI gets a huge upgrade discount.
-Going down a difficulty level can be a good idea when learning any total conversion mod, so don't feel bad, especially since some of the changes in 3.0 were specifically aimed at making the upper difficulties harder (such as given free techs to the AI).

 

[Praylak]

Ah, ok. I actually didn't realize about BTS and the cheap upgrades for the AI. It makes sense now then how they can keep thier entire fleet current.

Yes I see the Devore with +25% EP, wow. I'd suggest this be knocked back to +15%, even then, they'll generate more EP than anyone else.

I'm enjoying the mod, but ya I think I'm going to drop down a difficulty level, it should even the field for me. Thanks.