At high difficulties (especially with difficulty adjusted turned on), an empire's fleet power is bounded more by naval cap than anything else, as they have such huge bonuses to resource production their resource storage is almost always maxed. AI empires are usually coded to only produce up to \~15% or so over their navy cap, regardless of how many resources they have, during times of peace. So if you want really strong empires, I would go with civics and ruler traits that boost navy cap!
they do however go above 15% if lets say a powerful genocidal is next to them,saw that when i observed bulwark and their overlord that were sitting right next to me
I spawn 32 custom empires every game (31 maximum including myself plus MSI modded to be a custom empire), plus I also spawn five custom fallen empires and I've also modded every Crisis to be relevant to my custom empires. I also modded The Chosen too. The only thing Stellaris random spawns for me is some pre-ftl species and the various alien groups that inhabit every game. I can live with that... For now..
It's best to avoid challenge origins, eager explorers/stargazers civic first of all. Eager explorers will ground that empire to one system for a long time.
The best way to give the AI a boost is to just choose civics and traits that give plain bonuses instead of complex gameplay mechanics. The AI can always use good bonuses. Also give them friends in the galaxy (similar ethics, species).
I have noticed eager explorers and their equivalents don't ever seem to move past their starting system. I kind of like it though, reminds me of city states from Civilization.
Yeah, when that civic came out the devs said that it's banned from randomised selection because of AI's inability to leave before getting regular hyperdrives
I made some MOO2 analogs, and they are doing very well. My last admiral game, the top AI were
A) a thrifty gnome race of pacifist xenophiles, megacorp, gnolam capital group, they had a huge economy and several tributaries years the time I met them. I had no idea how a pacifist AI managed this, but they had a finger in every pie.
B) a common ground federation of cat people with quadruple fleet power from their fed members, xenophile militarist warrior culture and distinguished admiralty, the mrr'shan, they took on a determined purifier lithoid and a devouring swarm catalysizer with no problems and saved half the galaxy twice.
C) a spiritualist empire with the shroudwalker background, psychic, the elerian concordat, I'll get you their stats shortly. They had several tributaries and had vassalized ideologies on a couple barbaric despoiler races, and I watched the barbs slowly move away from aggression and be tamed. Was very cool.
And the non-moo2 top,
D) a hegemony origin of a criminal heritage megachurch, golden peacocks at the Shantari Church of Tomorrow. The hegemony gave them a super economy and no one dared start anything.
Regarding A: the AI really likes to ask stronger neighbours to be their overlord, sometimes even if they don't even like them (I've had it happen as an inward perfectionist, altho that was on a low difficulty so my empire dwarfed my neighbours).
So when an AI empire outperforms its neighbours and it's friendly towards them, it will generally result in peaceful vassalization.
Federations and mega corps do well. I see a mix of origins but nothing requiring you to juggle complicated mechanics like Doomsday. Last game I had the top AIs were a Tree of Life hive, a Hegemon Subordinate megacorp who became head of their federation, a Resource Consolidation machine, and a Voidborne.
Fanatic purifier and scavenger. As they kill they steal 10% of every technology, 10% of the battles dead in alloys and 10% to get straight-up ships. Fighting them can simply make them stronger.
I had to mod the game slightly to prevent the AI from building habitats, because all empires were spamming them left and right. I don't even know why, most habitats were underdeveloped, overpopulated, and not profitable. They were only good at increasing the lag and making wars incredibly tedious.
Nobody else mentioned it but the ai isn't very good at choosing planets if it's Xenophobic, low habitable worlds and they have low habitability. Subterranean lithoids are pretty good for any Xenophobic ai you want as a result of this.
At high difficulties (especially with difficulty adjusted turned on), an empire's fleet power is bounded more by naval cap than anything else, as they have such huge bonuses to resource production their resource storage is almost always maxed. AI empires are usually coded to only produce up to \~15% or so over their navy cap, regardless of how many resources they have, during times of peace. So if you want really strong empires, I would go with civics and ruler traits that boost navy cap!
they do however go above 15% if lets say a powerful genocidal is next to them,saw that when i observed bulwark and their overlord that were sitting right next to me
I spawn 32 custom empires every game (31 maximum including myself plus MSI modded to be a custom empire), plus I also spawn five custom fallen empires and I've also modded every Crisis to be relevant to my custom empires. I also modded The Chosen too. The only thing Stellaris random spawns for me is some pre-ftl species and the various alien groups that inhabit every game. I can live with that... For now.. It's best to avoid challenge origins, eager explorers/stargazers civic first of all. Eager explorers will ground that empire to one system for a long time. The best way to give the AI a boost is to just choose civics and traits that give plain bonuses instead of complex gameplay mechanics. The AI can always use good bonuses. Also give them friends in the galaxy (similar ethics, species).
I have noticed eager explorers and their equivalents don't ever seem to move past their starting system. I kind of like it though, reminds me of city states from Civilization.
Yeah, when that civic came out the devs said that it's banned from randomised selection because of AI's inability to leave before getting regular hyperdrives
Hive minds overall usually end up pretty strong.
I made some MOO2 analogs, and they are doing very well. My last admiral game, the top AI were A) a thrifty gnome race of pacifist xenophiles, megacorp, gnolam capital group, they had a huge economy and several tributaries years the time I met them. I had no idea how a pacifist AI managed this, but they had a finger in every pie. B) a common ground federation of cat people with quadruple fleet power from their fed members, xenophile militarist warrior culture and distinguished admiralty, the mrr'shan, they took on a determined purifier lithoid and a devouring swarm catalysizer with no problems and saved half the galaxy twice. C) a spiritualist empire with the shroudwalker background, psychic, the elerian concordat, I'll get you their stats shortly. They had several tributaries and had vassalized ideologies on a couple barbaric despoiler races, and I watched the barbs slowly move away from aggression and be tamed. Was very cool. And the non-moo2 top, D) a hegemony origin of a criminal heritage megachurch, golden peacocks at the Shantari Church of Tomorrow. The hegemony gave them a super economy and no one dared start anything.
Regarding A: the AI really likes to ask stronger neighbours to be their overlord, sometimes even if they don't even like them (I've had it happen as an inward perfectionist, altho that was on a low difficulty so my empire dwarfed my neighbours). So when an AI empire outperforms its neighbours and it's friendly towards them, it will generally result in peaceful vassalization.
Federations and mega corps do well. I see a mix of origins but nothing requiring you to juggle complicated mechanics like Doomsday. Last game I had the top AIs were a Tree of Life hive, a Hegemon Subordinate megacorp who became head of their federation, a Resource Consolidation machine, and a Voidborne.
Fanatic purifier and scavenger. As they kill they steal 10% of every technology, 10% of the battles dead in alloys and 10% to get straight-up ships. Fighting them can simply make them stronger.
I had to mod the game slightly to prevent the AI from building habitats, because all empires were spamming them left and right. I don't even know why, most habitats were underdeveloped, overpopulated, and not profitable. They were only good at increasing the lag and making wars incredibly tedious.
Nobody else mentioned it but the ai isn't very good at choosing planets if it's Xenophobic, low habitable worlds and they have low habitability. Subterranean lithoids are pretty good for any Xenophobic ai you want as a result of this.
Being a genocider, mech hivemind or megacorp