Play on Easy?

If I remember correctly, the AI on Normal in the GalCiv games were *handicapped*.  They had penalties to their resources and/or you had bonuses to yours.

Now, I'm not the best player to begin with, I usually don't go above the first two difficulty in the Civ games, but this game?  On Normal the game is over as soon as you research the Party and Weaponry techs because you now have an unstoppable autoresolve stack with your super-duper teleporting Transport hero.

That said, that's a problem with the current battle system making the Hero/Champions kinda worthless compared to regular unit stacks.

i am 110% sure the community will make wonderfull maps and balance the weapons/items etc stuff for us.

i am personally doing a mod for this game at a later date 70% done, and its going to be amazing.

I wouldn't worry too much right now the you can easily beat even a ridiculous AI. On my last game two AI went to war and marched their Sovs into my undefended main city. Yeah undefended sure I teleported back and took them both down. Bam 2 AI down 4 to go.

This may be a TBS and a kingdom builder of sorts but that doesn't mean you cans skimp on millitary. Get some research into promoted troops (forgot what it's called) and groups of troops you'll do fine. Galciv used to kick my arse till I got the hand of building my own units.

You're asking for something at total cross purposes. So you want a challenge, but you don't want a challenge from the AI? Either the AI threatens you or it doesn't, you can't have it both ways.

If Easy is too Easy, put some AI to normal and some to easy, tinker with the world size, the map difficulty, the number of AI in the game. Research diplomacy techs and invest in alliances with the AI.

If you want a peaceful builder game, give something like Anno 1404/Dawn of Discovery a try (an awesome game), but games like Elemental/Civ/GC2/et al are part builder, part wargame, always have been.

Lord Nova, I think you're the exact kind of fan I was referring to. You want your challenge no matter what, all the others can just 'lower the difficulty'. My issue is not with you are the fans that think like you do, my issue is with Stardock which listen and update their games according to your opinions.

You could argue, but the fact that remains is that these games were just fine when they were first out the door (with a few patches to address serious bugs), but have become and more war-centric as they were updated, and that is not really fair for people like me who bought the games just to have some fun building an empire, researching, and using diplomacy. I don't believe Stardock just want to create war-games, I always believed they wanted to create something more, and that is why I started as a fan back at 2003, since the first Galciv actually allowed me play the game without fighting all the time unlike the games of that era, and that, disappointingly, has changed.

I loved GalCiv2 and found normal difficulty to be just fine. I DO NOT play a warmonger, I usually play a industrial capitalist with some decent diplomacy and a small but strong standing army. I do the same thing in Elemental and I'm not having too many problems (although I did lose my last game).

It might be difficult to expand slowly because the AI is going to expand quickly, however, you really don't have to play this game any one way. It's quite versitile.

Give the game more time, play on a lower difficulty, and learn how to improve your playing style.

Also, as everyone has basically stated, there is going to be warfare elements in any strategy game like this (see GalCiv2, Civilization, Age of Empires, Superpower, Universalis...). Warfare is a fact of life and a MAJOR component in civilization's history. To ignore it would be a disservice to the customers and the genre.

I suggest you make some "friendly" custom civilizations who lack military strength and who focus more on diplomacy. That way you won't be playing with evil Empires and overambitious Kingdoms. You'll certainly want the World Difficult on it's lowest too and might want to find/make a mod that weakens the monsters.

Mtrixis, I disagree with your last paragraph.

The entire reason I joined as a fan back in the day was becuase the first Galciv actually allowed me to win diplomatically and economically, almost as good as Alpha Centauri was.

But that has changed over the years, as the games became more and more war-centric in my opinion, while leaving behind all the other great ways to win the game.

This is not something I decided over night, it is a long issue I kept to myself until now - Stardock games start excellent, and become wargames as they are updated, in my opinion.

I understand both sides of this argument. What we need is an Aggressiveness mod tweak Or option in the menu. Something to tweak how aggressive they are but not change their actual intelligence or resources etc. As a way to add or take away difficulty and tailor the game to your style.

And everyone stop flaming eachother it solves nothing try to come up with solutions. He's an loyal customer just like i have always been and his opinion shouldn't be put under intensive scrutiny Yes you should scrutinize it but don't outright tell him hes wrong and should just play on easy.

But on the otherhand Gormoth. Please reframe from insulting others just because they enjoy war its pointless. Infact your starting a small scale conflict in which both sides are responsible but nonetheless refuse to take blame. So please can we all just relax and have a meaningful and suggestion or at least help filled discussion.

Maybe someone can post a modified A.I file with lowered aggressiveness on normal for him if they have the time If i knew what values determined it i'd do it myself.

Oh man...

A game can never please everyone, that's for sure.

The most important thing I'm looking for in Stardock games is their challenging AIs. If military power wins against a player like Gormoth1, then the AI should go for it!

That said, AI behavior is governed by the modifiable xmls. Maybe someone could mod more peaceful factions for you to compete against.

I'm glad to see this thread take abit better nature. Well there will likely be an Aggression mod or built in feature until then. Its 3 AM for me but tomorrow i will look into the A.I and see if i can edit the aggression for you. I make no promises just that i might try if i fail you probably won't hear anything about it if i succeed i'll post here or in a new thread *if this one is locked down*

Anyways. I think everyone misunderstood him I do not think he meant he wanted No military. I understand his view its just that he wanted afew men to be enough in the beginning as in 'How the F*** does the A.I have 20 men already? i only have 5 defending my town' and then they diplomatically all declare war on him spontainiously and attack.

Its understandable to be abit angry. Granted theres logical thought in their actions but in reality it doesn't apply. People don't go to war senselessly particularly if their trade allies or if that other nation has a strong leader. Yet no matter how strong my sovereign is I even tested it by modding the unit file. He can be the equal to over 40 soldiers and they'll still declare war and think they can just march in.

It does get abit ridiculous. No offense to those whom enjoy war. I do as well but i enjoy war that i can win and not to be ganged on even by kingdoms and empires for seemingly no reason that i enjoyed good diplomacy with thus far.

So his point of view is understandable. But on a logical *purely logical* way of thinking so is the more war orientated and more then likely in a post apocolyptic world it is likely that people will be more willing to war over resources.

So in the end both sides have their own point to make and we just need a modifiable variable.

Sorry for my lack of grammar my grammar is normally poor and its 3 AM. Thank you all for your time for reading my post and have a nice night i'm off to bed.

Good point.

If you have a problem with the level of aggression in Galciv2, just edit the races or make you're own races that use the Torian AI or the Drath AI with basically 0 aggression and all good or neutral.

Granted Elemental doesn't have that now but then again neither did Galciv2 at launch.

All I know is I almost never build military ships for 2-4 years ingame time which made me think I was a rather passive player but apparently I'm a warmonger.

I didn't take any offence at being called a warmonger so no need for apologies, it's just that my play style rarely has me starting wars but I sure as hell finish them.

It sounds to me like you need to re-evvaluate what is an adequate starting defence and incorperate that into the city building.  If you're just buliding up and building up with reletively weak defences, then it makes you a juicy target.  There's  a civ4 quote of Aristophanes 

Nova, I understand what you mean, but let me try a different approach to explain my point of view: I play Rome Total War. A LOT. I love basking in never ending wars there, because that is what the game is all about. There is no 'Total War' in the title for nothing.

Stardock games, I believe, shouldn't be about waging endless wars and building considerable defenses, while trying to defend my land from multiple fronts because the AI considered me as a juicy target. I am looking for different aspects to enjoy when I play their games. I don't want Anno games, like Mtrixies pointed out, I want an empire builder that also contains combat but doesn't force me to rely on constantly pumping out defenses to prevent the AI from ganging up on me, because I don't want to play that way in this sort of game, especially since I feel the games started out just fine and became that way more and more as the updates progressed.

My playstyle worked just fine in GalCiv 1 and 2 before the patches, and it also worked just fine in Alpha Centauri in the first or second difficulty levels. I don't mind lowering the difficulty in order to prevent the AI from behaving that way, as long as it won't cause the AI to become a sniveling yes-man, and in Alpha Centauri, for example, it doesn't.