Quitting Pandora

[azpops]

Well, if your efforts at working on Pandora are to drive players away, you have succeeded. I am no longer interested in playing the game. It used to be fun. Now it is a waste of time.

Since your last update I have attempted 4 different games. In each game, I have been wiped off the face of the planet before the eclipse. And this by the Terra Salvum who are supposed to be the peaceful ones. In each game I am barely able to reach the Mechinization Period before the Terra wipe me out with nukes and black holes. I don't even have a chance to try to give them a gift or anything. They meet me, immediately declare war and start dropping nukes and black holes. Not much good trying to fight back with orbital bombardments only. If they do attack me with units, they have 200+ power tanks and planes against my whopping 40 or 50 ones. Doesn't take much to wipe me out fast.

Thanks for fixing what used to be a fun game.

[Xilmi]

Nukes and blackholes before the eclipse?

On easy-difficulty, which is the one supposed to be fair, the AI usually gets nukes around turn 180-200 and blackholes around turn 260-290. Eclipse starts at turn 95 and they usually are about to enter mechanization-era themselves.

Nukes before the eclipse might be possible for the AI on very-hard. But blackholes?

What I get from your post basically is: You are still playing on either hard or even very-hard.

The AI gets massive boni there. And it needed them because it wasn't very smart. Now it is smarter so you can reduce the boni to a level where you can still handel them.

The purpose was to allow players to have a fair game, where the AI doesn't need massive boni of the higher-difficulty-levels but can still put up a fight by properly managing their empire.

I think all that is needed in your case is to reconsider the meaning of the difficulty-levels:

You want to try out stuff and just play around and learn the basics? Play on very-easy.
You want a fair-game? Play on easy.
You are an experienced player and want a challenge? Play on medium.
You think you are pretty good and know all mechanics in and out? Play on hard.
Only if you are either a masochist or really consider yourself to be among the best 4-x players of the world should you think about playing on very hard!

Just because you could beat it before, doesn't mean it was supposed to be like that!

[Zak0r]

I would also add that the AI changes are limited to the Beta branch of the game. So it's a little silly to leave the game just because the devs are testing some stuff (which most people actually like btw). You could help to make the difficulty feel better if you'd give some feedback that could be used. Right now it sounds a bit chaotic with black holes before the eclipse and 200 strenght units steamrolling you. Can you provide a savegame of that?

[Apheirox]

This thread is actually a credit to Pandora: Here is a game that manages to challenge a player expecting [demanding!] an easy win. If this is due to Xilmi's AI improvements it simply means he is doing a good job - that the AI doesn't just roll over and die like in many similar games is high praise indeed, even if it clashes with somebody's comfort zone.

Pandora is a niche and probably pretty hardcore game - you likely have to enjoy 4X games a lot to enjoy it. So, perhaps this a game being bold and daring to be something different than the underwhelming mainstream strategy games being put out today. Maybe "Hard" actually means hard in this game? What a novel idea!

There are expert players reading this board (notably, the helpful two who already posted) by whose advice you can surely improve your game enough to succeed - noting that 'success' does not necessarily equate to 'consistently beating the game on the highest difficulty setting', as this is simply a false standard set by other games (why would you expect to win if a difficulty is marked as "very hard" or "impossible"? If you can enjoy a game only if winning on a high difficulty setting the fault lies with your expectations, not the game!

You are in fact presented with a choice here: You can choose to give up and walk away - or you can recognize that this game might [now] be a genuine challenge and an opportunity to learn and become a better 4X player. There are ample resources available here for those choosing the latter. With persistence, anyone should be able to beat the non-cheating difficulty settings - while still leaving the cheating levels open, so there is room to grow.

[Xilmi]

Since a few weeks I reached a point where I can no longer beat the game on very hard.

I'm now working on achieving the same for hard-level.

But eventually we might be forced to reconsider the AI-boni on the higher-difficulties. Which would be a pity because I kinda like the survival-mode, that will eventually kill you but you can see how long you can stay alive.

Economically the AI does really well now.
The decision between units vs. buildings vs. science also was majorly reworked and is much smarter.
But it still needs major improvements on how to use their units.

My newest improvement is an algorithm that changes the destination of transports if they are sent to enemy-territory, so they are not an easy target to orbital-bombardment.

I'm also on something huge but it's still very experimental and I'm not quite there yet: Several commands per turn. Right now the AI can only give one order to an unit. So it cannot do something like: Move to the most suitable territory and attack from there and it cannot use the Multi-Strike-Device at all. That's gotta change!

Also I'm confident to say that already my AI has surpassed that of any other 4x-game I know in terms of being able to compete on a non-cheating-difficulty-level.

[iplaypfc2015]

Well, if your efforts at working on Pandora are to drive players away, you have succeeded. I am no longer interested in playing the game. It used to be fun. Now it is a waste of time.

Since your last update I have attempted 4 different games. In each game, I have been wiped off the face of the planet before the eclipse. And this by the Terra Salvum who are supposed to be the peaceful ones. In each game I am barely able to reach the Mechinization Period before the Terra wipe me out with nukes and black holes. I don't even have a chance to try to give them a gift or anything. They meet me, immediately declare war and start dropping nukes and black holes. Not much good trying to fight back with orbital bombardments only. If they do attack me with units, they have 200+ power tanks and planes against my whopping 40 or 50 ones. Doesn't take much to wipe me out fast.

Thanks for fixing what used to be a fun game.

this is of course another option for making fun, learn to hack . this might suit your fun sense.

[Xilmi]

Some of the statements I made earlier in this thread are infact no longer true:

In the meantime difficulty-levels have been reduced:
Old Very-Hard no longer exists.
Old Hard is new very-hard.
old medium is new hard.
old easy is new medium, so medium now is the fair-difficulty-level.
old very-easy is new easy.
In new very easy now the AI has an even bigger disadvantage in growth and morale.

I infact now am at a point where I can't beat the old hard, which is the new very-hard anymore. (At least I recently managed to survive a random-difficulty-game including a very-hard AI till the very-hard won by economic-victory after wiping all the other AIs with easier difficulties out)

The AIs unit-management has been improved a lot since then. They will spread out, they will favour favourable territory, they will bring artillery, they will block and generally be much more pain in the ass to deal with.

The mechanism I mentioned back then, which allows the AI to give several orders to a unit each turn when it still has movement-points available have longs since been implemented. This enables the AI to do some tricks that before had been impossible and make it more effective and faster in general.

Oh and after playing this game for 2 days straight I'm now kinda exhausted from it and feel I need to quit it too... at least for a few days.

[PvtHudson]

The quick and wit AI, both strategic and tactical, is the greatest asset of Pandora, average in other respects game. Thank you very much for it, Xilmi! If only we can get certain UI improvements...

[iplaypfc2015]

Well, if your efforts at working on Pandora are to drive players away, you have succeeded. I am no longer interested in playing the game. It used to be fun. Now it is a waste of time.

Since your last update I have attempted 4 different games. In each game, I have been wiped off the face of the planet before the eclipse. And this by the Terra Salvum who are supposed to be the peaceful ones. In each game I am barely able to reach the Mechinization Period before the Terra wipe me out with nukes and black holes. I don't even have a chance to try to give them a gift or anything. They meet me, immediately declare war and start dropping nukes and black holes. Not much good trying to fight back with orbital bombardments only. If they do attack me with units, they have 200+ power tanks and planes against my whopping 40 or 50 ones. Doesn't take much to wipe me out fast.

Thanks for fixing what used to be a fun game.

please try this...

Pandora 2015-09-24 06-50-51-45.jpg (162.15 KiB) Viewed 3475 times

losing sucks of course....

[iplaypfc2015]

everyone wants to be predator of course.

see the other weakling, who the heck wants to be him?

[ERISS]

everyone wants to be predator
the other weakling, who the heck wants to be him?

This is nonsense, as we are the weakling, even we would not want to, and we can not be a predator, even we would want to. Have the courage to not switch to the seemly easiness of the side that you fear...

[iplaypfc2015]

everyone wants to be predator
the other weakling, who the heck wants to be him?

This is nonsense, as we are the weakling, even we would not want to, and we can not be a predator, even we would want to. Have the courage to not switch to the seemly easiness of the side that you fear...

i think you are missing the metaphor... maybe you are using a translator app? i simply meant everyone wants to win and not lose.

[Xilmi]

I want to lose. If I win it means I've done a bad job with the AI!

[iplaypfc2015]

I want to lose. If I win it means I've done a bad job with the AI!

, good. be a loser then...

[Xilmi]

Are you trying to taunt me into schooling you in MP?

[iplaypfc2015]

Are you trying to taunt me into schooling you in MP?

i'm not sure... whats MP? what was your originally intent when you admitted you wanted to be loser?

[ERISS]

i simply meant everyone wants to win and not lose.

Sure. You mean too that we must try switching side in order to win. When you lose, join the enemy. Being a traitor is an option for you. Or change your metaphor.
Hey I'm French, I am supposed to like your Pétainist/Vichyst resistance-less view
Edit: Woops, took the way of Godwin Point

[iplaypfc2015]

i simply meant everyone wants to win and not lose.

Sure. You mean too that we must try switching side in order to win. When you lose, join the enemy. Being a traitor is an option for you. Or change your metaphor.
Hey I'm French, I am supposed to like your Pétainist/Vichyst resistance-less view
Edit: Woops, took the way of Godwin Point

no . i don;t know why you brought godwin into this. lol. i think my using of the predator picture imprinted a certain impression in your mind. not suggesting anything about switching race or changing your dna to win, ok.

that picture was merely used to suggest purely the ideal of winning.

i don't know why you got that idea about switching side in your head. maybe a french thing?

[Xilmi]

i'm not sure... whats MP? what was your originally intent when you admitted you wanted to be loser?

Multiplayer.

My intent is to grow as a player.
Losing to an enemy who was better than me will teach me much more than beating someone inferior up.
Using unfair advantages in order to do so will be even less educative.

[ERISS]

i think my using of the predator picture imprinted a certain impression in your mind. not suggesting anything about switching race or changing your dna to win.
that picture was merely used to suggest purely the ideal of winning.

It was very badly chosen then (more, you chose the reverse of what you says), as the human here is in bad situation.
Chose a winner next time, such as DukeNukem, the badass against aliens.
With better writings.
"Everyone wants to be Predator of course."
No, not me.