What should I set AI auto progress to?

[Tegga]

Fairly newish to AI war, what should I set the auto progress to? I have all the expansions and playing at 7 difficulty and updated to 5.0035.

The suggestion tooltip says 1 per 5, it just seems really fast.  Should I get used to this or is that too high/low?

[tigersfan]

IMO, that's really up to you. Personally, I don't like feeling rushed, so I usually play at very low to no AIP.

Whereas others like the idea of feeling like they really need to hurry. I say for the first game or two, set it to a slower pace, until you get a feel for what is more fun for you.

[Tegga]

IMO, that's really up to you. Personally, I don't like feeling rushed, so I usually play at very low to no AIP.

Whereas others like the idea of feeling like they really need to hurry. I say for the first game or two, set it to a slower pace, until you get a feel for what is more fun for you.

What do you set your time / increase to?  Also playing 120 planet realistic if it makes a difference

[keith.lamothe]

The balance target for the game is around 1 AIP per 30 minutes; used to be 1 AIP per 5 minutes but not many people seemed keen on playing at that

[Tegga]

The balance target for the game is around 1 AIP per 30 minutes; used to be 1 AIP per 5 minutes but not many people seemed keen on playing at that

Thank you for responding; I was confused read on the wiki 1per30 and the tooltip said 1per5. 

[TechSY730]

The balance target for the game is around 1 AIP per 30 minutes; used to be 1 AIP per 5 minutes but not many people seemed keen on playing at that

Thank you for responding; I was confused read on the wiki 1per30 and the tooltip said 1per5.

Yea, the tooltip needs to be updated.

Actually, that would be a good one for mantis.

[NickAragua]

I generally play with no time-based AI progress. While I am pretty slow (my games generally run upwards of 20-30 hours), I just don't need another source of AI Progress - I'm not terribly good at keeping it down anyway. Incidentally, I also never play with Spire Civilians (after having tried them once).

[doctorfrog]

With all the expansion features enabled, 1 AIP/30min is plenty for a starting player. There's more than enough going on with other stuff.

[snelg]

Almost always playing without auto increase. There's a lot of other options to make the game more interesting (in my opinion).

[barryvm]

Normally I play at 1AIP/30minutes but I don't notice any difference (most games have lasted between 8 and 13 hours).
I seem to be able to get myself into trouble even without the AIP increase:

In my opinion the actions you take (and when you take them) define the pace of the game, not the AIP time penalty.
Since most events occur after fixed intervals (granted: some based on AIP) you never have the luxury of waiting for your economy to build up a surplus before rebuilding fleets/defences etc, so there is not a very great need for an extra time constraining factor.
You can however use it to make your game harder (1 AIP / 5 minutes sounds pretty hard).

[Hearteater]

1 AIP/30 minutes is next to ignorable and an excellent value to start with to get a feel for how you handle that subtle pressure.  You'll see the message pop up that 1 AIP got added and it pushes you to keep moving.  Once you are comfortable with that, if you like something pushing you to stay on the offensive, 5 AIP/30 minutes is pretty noticeable and not something you want to try on a difficulty level you've never beaten.

Going above that is a serious increase in challenge.  The 30 minute increment makes the challenge more spikey, while increasing the frequency makes the threat curve smoother but I've found adds a degree of hopelessness to the pressure I don't find as fun.  I like bigger spikes of AIP at larger intervals.

[Martyn van Buren]

Honestly if you feel like you're still learning how to play the game 1/30 or just no auto-increase seems fine.  I could see it adding a cool challenge, especially if you're inclined to play slowly and want to give yourself a challenge to make you hurry a bit, but it's so easy to get yourself overwhelmed without auto-increase that I don't think it's part of the core challenge of the game.

[Wanderer]

The very low AIP increases get you moving in the early game so you're not sitting around doing nothing forever, but don't affect the late game much if at all.  A setting that would affect the late game really wrecks you in the early game, so it's kind of a catch 22.

I've been tempted to drop in a 20/2 hours AIP Pressure increase and see how that would affect my gameplay.  Maybe 40/2 hours.  That'd get me out of the early game without getting hammered to bits but really push some AIP into the middle/late game.  First I need to see how my rematches go.

[TechSY730]

The very low AIP increases get you moving in the early game so you're not sitting around doing nothing forever, but don't affect the late game much if at all.  A setting that would affect the late game really wrecks you in the early game, so it's kind of a catch 22.

I've been tempted to drop in a 20/2 hours AIP Pressure increase and see how that would affect my gameplay.  Maybe 40/2 hours.  That'd get me out of the early game without getting hammered to bits but really push some AIP into the middle/late game.  First I need to see how my rematches go.

Oh come on, you beat AI 10/10 thrice by now (OK, the last time you were using multi-homeworld cheese, but still)
Bump it up to 100/1 minute. 

[Wanderer]

The very low AIP increases get you moving in the early game so you're not sitting around doing nothing forever, but don't affect the late game much if at all.  A setting that would affect the late game really wrecks you in the early game, so it's kind of a catch 22.

I've been tempted to drop in a 20/2 hours AIP Pressure increase and see how that would affect my gameplay.  Maybe 40/2 hours.  That'd get me out of the early game without getting hammered to bits but really push some AIP into the middle/late game.  First I need to see how my rematches go.

Oh come on, you beat AI 10/10 thrice by now (OK, the last time you were using multi-homeworld cheese, but still)
Bump it up to 100/1 minute. 

If we're counting, 4 times.  Once was the Fallen Spire 8 Homeworld 10/10 challenge... though that soaked the cheese of the Shield Ninny for no waves.  The Exos were enough, honestly.

Considering that the +40 AIP increased Zenith Dudes were pounding me flat I'm going to have to pass on that out of the gate increase.    I'm just not that good!