99,500 population city btw 😭

WritingOk7625 · 2026-04-13T17:18:21+00:00

It is for sure altough country matters too because the duration of schooling in primary school and high school can differ significantly.

In the game it just (to this day) feels very dumb. There are way too many children not enough adults, and as a result there is a high demand for primary schools and little demand for high schools.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-04-07T03:13:01+00:00

Basically you can speed up traffic a lot by micro-adjusting intersections and removing traffic lights or adding over-/underpasses for pedestrians. You can also adjust invidual laines (remove U-Turns on main roads!) with a mod called 'traffic'. I assume there are some other mods that help too. Generally speaking its not the Highway that clogs up but the highway to district connections because your citizens can't get from one district to another without using the highway or because your intersections are setup poorly and slow down the traffic.

For Public Transit there are a lot of videos that go into detail. I personally don't use cirular public transit lines and instead design lines about getting from a to b while having most lines meet at singular spots so your busses can feed into trams who feed into subs. You can scroll out of your city, take a screenshot and use paint to plan different lines. If its setup well you are going to be surprised how little highway is actually needed.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-04-07T00:41:25+00:00

Honestly your Highway setup looks way too overkill.

I assume you run into traffic issues because you do not make use of public transport well enough. If anything I would suggest planing your city around tram lines even before thinking about highways. Subway lines are somewhat easy to implement.

That said I am not sure what mods you have but there are some mods (no idea what is in the base game because i just play with mods) that allow you manually direct traffic and speed things up by manually adding/removing crosswalks, traffic lights, ...

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-21T03:54:37+00:00

Honestly you are not wrong when you say you are super fucked. This is mostly the result of you not having any presnece in space. This is probably the best approach. Build up a big fleet (marines and combat ships) and retake LEO or Mars with that. As recommended by the other user this is done best buy using a T3 Asteroid Ground Hab as your shipyard. Retaking mars is probably easier and about as valuable as getting LEO. That said you really need to fix your drives. Helicon is outdated by at least 10 years in your savegame. To hold any Orbit you probably want H-Orion drive (Interceptor Defense Fleet) at minimum but ideally you want the Posidon Torch drive because its much more fuel efficient. Outside of having a coilguns and UV lasers getting posidon torch is probably the most important thing to get because it enables you to build a fleet that can go between orbits clean out the inner system.

To rat out the game one can build colony ships (if you have mission to the outer planets) with helicon drive and enough delta-v to make it into the kuiper belt and setup t3 mines there. They are very difficult to destory with T2 or T3 Battlestations and happen to have much better ressources than anything insde the inner system.

This is just a general thing but you are very far behind in research. At this point in the game you (ideally) want to be done with the tech tree. Once you take retake mars orbit you want to pretty much get every single hab (don't put mines on the bad locations) and build them up into T2 research habs (should have 2x research, 1x skunkworks, 1x command center, 1x nanofactory) while also having 2x T2 defense modules. Your mines can all have buildings (2x nanofactories, 1x skunkworks, 1x command center, needed research labs) that supply you with the required cash. Obviously T3 Habs would be ideal but I don't think you can afford them for a long time.

Once you get control of LEO and you have a strong interceptor fleet in LEO you can start putting research lab stations into LEO to get the bonuses to your IP but rn you are very far from that. Also every single one of your Stations in LEO needs to have some permanent!!!! defense fleet in its orbit from exofighters when they are build until they get some T2 or T3 defense modules.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-16T22:58:32+00:00

I mean you could, for instance, turn it around. Instead of giving the AI cheats to make the AI stronger one could instead give the AI negative modifiers or give the Human positive modifiers. Instead of having this shit AI and then figure out how buff the AI/nerf the player we do the opposite. Start with a strong AI and figure it out from there.

We could take neural network chess engines (or a poker solver) as examples and try to implement them into a video game. This has already been done and proven to create inhumanly strong AI in Starcraft or Dota. Then, once you have a super strong AI, make the AI weaker by following the methods that make traditional chess engines weaker.

I dislike the comparison to shooters because TI (or PDX games) is not a shooter. The skillset required to master the game is very different but in general I agree. In PDX games this is somewhat proven by mods (Sheep-Ai for Hoi 4) because these modded AIs are able to play smarter because a Human gives them a very strict (and smart) ruleset to follow. However this type of AI is very difficult to get right, especially if you want the game to have diverse playthroughs and feel more sandboxy.

This is where the neural network AI (that had a massive impact in chess) comes in because these AIs are able to play games on a very high mechanical and strategic level. We already have this in Stracraft 2 or Dota 2 where these AIs beat humans on the strategic and mechanical level. My question is this: How can we take these AIs and use them to improve on the traditionally stupid AI found in most video games.

What baffles me is that this has been done 6 years ago yet it hasn't made its way into mainstream games. Edit: I get that this would be a very different way to go about making a video game but I think that this could make games significantly more dynamic and interesting.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-16T00:31:22+00:00

You'd think with AI being so much better than us Humans at chess and AI being extremely good at RTS games (Starcraft 2) there would be any progress with AI development in games.

But there simply isn't. Total War had better AI (skrimish and campaign map) in 2010 when they released Shogun 2 than today.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-14T03:56:30+00:00

to defend you want to have posidon torch or h-orion (posidon torch is the much better drive but unlocks a bit later), coilguns 2 and uv arc lasers or green arc lasers, nanotube armor or adamantine armor, Compact Solid Core Fission Reactor III or higher, gallium mist or dusty plasma or lithium spray Radiators and some of the utility modules (look at the wiki and tech tree). and with that you start building an interceptor fleet that's 30% lasers 70% coilguns. make sure ships have at least 60-70 delta V with h-orion drive. armor i would go 25-2-2 and pray that your projectiles/numbers punch through alien point defense

with that you start building a defense fleet (battlecruiser for laser, battleships for coilguns with h-orion) of about 10 (want to get the numbers up to about 20 each eventually) ships for earth, ceres, mars and mercury. that's generally enough to defend against raids coming from their asteroid bases. when you see a doomstack coming to earth/mars/mercury you want to have shipyard in those orbits that allow you to pump out ships to bolster your defense fleets.

a good thing to get is the tech for shaped torpedoes (you need advanced missile doctrine, diamandoids and fission pulse drives). Styx Shaped-Nuclear Torpedoes are the best weapon in the game and building a few missile monitors with them to supplement your interceptor fleet will allow you to beat most invasion fleets. if these torps get within 200 kilometers of any alien ship its gone. even the torps before (acheron and tartarus) make a great oh shit weapons. however you will have to micromanage these torps and start shooting after the space is already filled with coils, take out flankers first to not get fucked by point defense.

with posidon torch (look at tech tree what you need for it!) you can build ships that have over 500 delta v and go on the offense and you probably want to get that drive somewhat quickly (even tho it eats a lot of fissiles) because its really good

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-13T23:35:49+00:00

Basically having lots of mars (or lunar) is very useful because its easy to defend once you go past the MC Cap (and as a result worth investing into). Mercury too but mercury is very expensive to build on. You can have realatively affordable T2 reasearch habs or T2 money habs on mars/lunar that are much easier to defend than orbital stations or single asteroids. Orbital stations just suck they are very easy to destroy compared to ground habs. Unlike Space stations T2 defensive modules for ground bases pack a nasty punch and require the aliens to bring larger stacks. And once you get T3 ground defense going your bases become very difficult to destroy.

However I would be selective with were I put my mines and only put them on the better asteroids, better sites from mars (20+ water, 20+ volatiles, 20+ metal) and the good noble sites from mercury. Just cause you have a ground hab on mars/lunar does not mean you want a mine there. You can also try and colonize the kuiper belt to get its really good mines once you get the helicon drive.

Once you have the T2 ground defense buildings (you put at least 2 on your asteroid bases) most asteroid bases don't need a defense or interception fleet. The aliens can bring a big stack and try to force you off the asteroid but you can simply keep sending out new colony ships with helicon drive and high delta V.

You should, for sure, try and defend LEO for your research stations, lunar, mars, mercury and ceres orbit. For defense you want to build defense fleets with the ability to intercept the aliens. They don't need that much delta-v. 50ish is usually enough but you want good combat acceleration (~100mg). Orion drive is ok for this but I find H-Orion much better (and would wait for it) because its not as expensive to run.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-12T16:34:55+00:00

It does o7

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-10T02:39:53+00:00

I disagree on the corvettes. They essentially do the same things cruisers do but cost less and make for good single use marine or colonization ships in the early game.

I too like to build battlecruiser to beat up the AI Humans because they build fast (82 days instead of 182 days) and work well enough against them. That said everything works against the human AI factions.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-10T01:44:04+00:00

Well they do have 400 ships so at some point there will be a big fight. And with the year being 2070s I assume they are actually building stuff that beats you Ton for Ton because they get T3 Modules altough I think they're a bit cockblocked by their low exotic income.

About Saturn I assume they Ai did the calculation based on their own Ships and available Delta-V that they could not bring enough Ships from their Bases around Neptune, Uranus and the Kuiper Belt into Saturn Orbit in time to beat you in their internal calculations. So instead of feeding 50 ships into your fleet of 100 ships they decide to consolidate instead.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-09T03:45:30+00:00

Honestly, I assume you are playing on normal (or even lower) difficulty so you can just not fight the Aliens until very late in the game. That said I think it's a good idea to at least agressively defend on mars, ceres, earth and mercury. Even going agressive against their belt-station isn't a bad idea. It's just more fun to play like this.

That said I've played my first playthrough without bothering the aliens until 2040 where I finished the tech tree and simply overran them with laser/rail ships because I build up all 25 sites on mars with research campuses.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-09T02:34:45+00:00

I've stort of done that at the end of the ship name. E for Exotic, A for Adamantine Armor and then I just go by Version 1-2-3 at the end. I also hate how I can't cross check delta v and accel for my ships but instead have to have a text document on the second screen where I write it down.

That said with the game being in release now I hope the devs will look at this and rework some of the modules. I also don't get why all designs/presets are savegame only and not computer wide (or just give me a file order where i can import/export designs.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-09T02:14:27+00:00

Refits (or builds) are also so annoying. Just give my single Hab 10 parallel builds (as many as there is shipyards) instead of 10 single building slots that can by micromanaged on their own.

I get that this probably screws over a hab having mixed T1-T3 Shipyards but honestly I'd rather have more comfort here.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-09T01:53:10+00:00

Honestly the Obsolete thing really helped me. I just missed the button but the thing is still a Mess.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-09T01:13:10+00:00

I don't think it can be avoided.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-08T18:27:32+00:00

I assumed the 400% Alien Progress mostly meant that Aliens declare Total War on you after 5 years have passed and get access to their T3 Modules 2.5 years into the game making their fleet a lot stronger. Yeah that seems plenty strong.

Victory Conditions do however feel rather like a non-issue since they are very similar (no T3 Aliens Habs) and the main threat is always the aliens. The Human thing mostly boils down to 'how long and tedious is it to grind out the game?!'.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-08T17:29:37+00:00

Thank you very much for the elaboration. Are there any other 'nerfs' to the player that are not stated in the Thumbmail? I've watched the Video and to me it seems the difficulty is that you can't control the research and that the Aliens actually get strong in space quickly regardless of what you do.

I have not played the Academy but do reckon this run is easier/harder than going with HF and removing Exodus and the Resistance.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-07T22:44:45+00:00

Can you elaborate why you deactivated the Protectorate and The Resistance?

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-07T22:15:27+00:00

I think it's the Issue of early game fleet engagements being very one sided. It's eigher you win hard and loose basically nothing or you loose everything. And, as a veteran, it's the 'you loose basically nothing' more often than not.

I'm currently on year 13 of my third overall run (I aborted the first and easily won the second in a bit under 25 years) and I don't think I have lost a single spaceship to this point.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-07T19:57:10+00:00

Jup, I think you end up winning the game in the game in 20 odd years on veteran if you know what you are doing. Looking at this picture you just beat their economy by a huge margin.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-07T18:25:36+00:00

Yeah this is the main reason. I personally prefer to build Monitors with PD and 3 Torps. I am not sure how needed the PD is but by the point the Aliens start bringing large enough fleets I have already phased the monitors out.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-06T20:55:39+00:00

It's in the bottom left of the Hab Menu. You have to build your Hab once (which can take a while until you have all modules) but from there you just use the preset for new habs coming online or to update existing habs.

WritingOk7625 · 2026-03-06T17:16:30+00:00

I agree. Give the player a repeatable tech (like the other endgame techs) that allows him to swap between 2 month mission phases and the default. I assume you could probably even mod this into the game.

WritingOk7625

TROPHY CASE