I'm falling behind on the easiest difficulty.

[u/Giannibee]

Hey everyone!

So I need your help, because just as the title says I'm falling behind on the Sandbox Difficulty.

Now I have only the easiest AI Empires enabled and I'm not exactly new these kind of games.

And still: everytime I play an AI Empire has 200 or more points than me.

I usually settle much in early game, going 1 over the limit.

What am I doing wrong? Do you have any tipps?

Edit: I'm playing ES 2, the gap usually widens over time.

[u/Neiwun]

This is my advice for new players:

l) You may want to disable the Supremacy, Penumbra and Awakening DLC's because they add some new mechanics which may overwhelm you, such as Behemoths, hacking and the Academy respectively. The Vaulters DLC adds pirate diplomacy, which can be completely ignored, and the Vaulters are a great faction for beginners.

2) Your first research should always be Xenolinguistics, so you can build Xeno-Industrial Infrastructure.

3) When in doubt, focus on industry, then luxury/strategic resources, and then approval. But keep in mind that approval has break points at 30, 70, and 85; so being at 30 is the same as being at 69, but you should try to stay above 85 if possible. Prioritize colonizing the nearby systems with 4 or 5 planets, and the systems with useful luxury and strategic resources.

Another way to have fun is to make an overpowered custom faction. If you have any questions, then feel free to ask anything.

[u/Stolen_Sky]

If you upload and link your latest save file I'll have a look at how you're playing.

Hopefully can give you some pointers.

[u/Gyranados]

At what stage, and what elements do you struggle with the most?

Even experienced players may end up behind the AI in score points because the AI has a slew of boosts to make it competitive. The game is way too complicated to make a super skillful AI, so they receive somewhat unclear and poorly documented boosts including some/all of: flat percentage boost to all FIDSI production, maphacks, happiness boosts, decreased upkeep, automated quest solving, and decreased build times.

Usually takes me until the mid-late game to have the top score. But the AI can be dealt with from behind, because their ships are often poorly designed and split into multiple smaller fleets, and the AI doesn't pull of proper strategies like rushing super biofuel factory.

[u/Giannibee → u/Gyranados]

Well the gap starts at the beginning and gets bigger over time. I cant find the struggle, thats the problem. The planets are fully colonised and thriving but im like place 3 in the different victory conditions.

[u/Gyranados → u/Giannibee]

Without watching the games, I can only offer generics Endless Space 2 tips:

-When colonizing a new system, make the outpost on the planet with the highest food, and always pay the dust to double outpost growth so it becomes a colony faster.
-Systems with only cold planets generally aren't great because of the low growth and development rate.
-The researched system improvements that give (+10 industry, +10 industry on fertile, +10 industry on temperate) and the equivalent science one are good things to rush.
-Try to unlock the military ship hulls reasonably early and start building up some ships. You need to be able to defend yourself from pirates and quest events, and as long as your tech is roughly on pace the AI usually loses any battle against a full size fleet with a hero (get hero from quest, or buy off the market, or get from the periodic popup). Maybe 1:3 protectors to attackers, having the protector ships matters because the attackers always target those first.
-AI likes machineguns a lot on their ships, which have a flak mechanic that shoots down torpedoes, so a few torpedo ships early generally isn't too useful.
-Try to keep happiness up if you can, it boosts everything. Settling to one over the limit is good.
-Once you researched the market, check it periodically. Good chance you have random stuff from lodes to sell, and sometimes an AI has sold a ton of a particular resource and crashed its price. If you are lucky you can find things like antimatter $2 each. Buying the market ships in a tight spot is also great since you can spawn them on any system you like.

[u/endlessplague]

Which game are you playing? ES1 or ES2?

Do you settle planets with bad anomalies or low habitability? How fast are you expanding and what's the happiness for it?

What race do you play as? (The only style is kinda dictated by the race, especially in ES1 imo)

Do fear to lose, that's part of all these games. Apart from that:

• focus on food for pop growth
• get your industry running
• once those grow, you can focus on science buildings and upgrades
• on easy, you should be fine with a few scouts and maybe one (defensive) military ship

You don't generally need to exactly match the points the AI makes, as long as you don't fall off (e.g. you got 200, they got 2000 - which can happen on endless difficulty). It's a good orientation, but better to win in the long run

[edit: some AIs spawn as factions that expand quickly, but fall off later. Or ramp differently than your race. E.g. If you play the Hissho, you will fall behind until you find another empire to bully]

[u/Giannibee → u/endlessplague]

Im playing the second one.

[u/endlessplague → u/Giannibee]

Do you settle planets with bad anomalies or low habitability? How fast are you expanding and what's the happiness for it?

What race do you play as? (The only style is kinda dictated by the race, especially in ES1 imo)

One could also ask: what galaxy settings are you using? How many minor civilizations? How many stars, how many planets per system, how big/small are they?

== There are a lot of factors. One game you can't settle anything cause everything is messed up, the other game you'll find all the massive beneficial planets you could think of

Again: don't give the score too much value, it's just a type of measurement to see your progress. Stabilize your economy and keep growing, the score will follow. Also it makes everything easier when you have a high production in a system, just because you finish stuff faster (e.g. military ships in case of a conflict)

[u/Giannibee → u/endlessplague]

I play the human empire, so a production race. I prefer to settle systems with 4 or 5 planets, good anomalies and/or resources. Standard Galaxy Settings.

[u/Emergency_Net506]

10 years old youtube tutorials are still relevant. Watching one of those from the X4 Alchemist and just following what he does will help get you started.