"Difficulty" makes game less fun

[Kalt]

(I just started playing again, and the same things popped up which really tarnish an otherwise outstanding game)

Let's face it folks, this game is too easy because there is no way the AI can hold a candle to a decent player when it comes to tactical battles and empire building. The AI sucks, plain and simple, and in a very complex game like this, there are innumerable ways to get an edge on the AI every turn. All of these minor victories add up and accumulate until you, the player, becomes unstoppable.

On expert difficulty, the AI 'cheats' in order to provide more of a challenge. If the AI cheats too much, players would get trashed in the first 20 turns, while if the AI doesnt cheat enough, and the player survives the early turns, the player will demolish the AI as usual.

My problem with the difficulty is thus: on expert difficulty, diplomacy is non-existant. It is very very hard to get your princes married even if you are at peace with a nation and FAR stronger than that nation (irl such a nation would be begging you for friendship). In addition, the more beat down and hanging-by-a-thread a faction is, the more they want to fight. In my first major campaign as the turks I beat the Almohads to a bloody pulp, killing them to less than 10 total men (they were down to 1 province and I would siege it off and on to keep them weak), yet they refused to make peace THEN I re-loaded and played nice with them after beating them down, and tried to make peace over 20 times in both cases, not once did they accept

Why? Ill tell you why: On expert difficulty, once the AI ends up at war with you, either because you attacked or they attacked, it is virtually impossible to make peace. This is supposed to make the game 'harder' but really it doesnt, it just completely removes diplomacy. Eventually whether you like it or not, it is going to be every faction in the game versus YOU. Why do I not like this? Because maybe I DON'T want to play balls-out militaristic EVERY GAME. Maybe I want to try to play a game with diplomacy and subterfuge instead of hoards of 100-man teched-up feudal seargeants led by insanely powerful generals plowing all who oppose me underfoot. That gets OLD. On expert difficulty you don't have room to play like a wuss, you must play to win from turn 1 or you are in for a tedious game.

Could I play on a lesser difficulty? Yes I could, but given how utterly incompetant the AI can be on expert, I am loathe to inflict further stupidity upon it. I don't even know if I can keep everyone at peace with me even on a low difficulty setting (anyone who knows more about diplomacy in the game please shed light on this), and so what if I could? Then I would be doing little more than herding around a few weak inferior factions that are liable to get their monarchs killed anyway only to be replaced with rebels. Oh and considering 99% of the difficulty on expert level is imposed by _VERY_ rebellious provinces and unrealistically massive high-tech instant chivalric rebel armies of doom (taking an enemy province without holding it is a good way to ensure that your enemy gets free 1000+ man high tech armies. Loyalist faction rebels are still FAR too powerful, however Im glad most other rebellion types are reasonable now).

So how can I have my cake (challenging AI) and eat it too (play with dimplomacy instead of world vs. me)?

[Vanya]

GAH

Simple, sez Vanya

Vanya suggests you try one of the following:

1. Play blindfolded.

2. Sit in another room, away from the PC, and have your younger sister at the keyboard. You then bark orders to her from your distant room. You are not allowed to barge in and take over. Just order, and let her perform her duties diligently.

3. Play game while watching BANZAI on Fox.

4. Limit yourself to only using peasants and gunnies as a matter or principle so you can bring liberty to the oppressed masses and overthrow the decandent aristocrats who fleece the people to get fat.

5. Open your eyes and come to the realization that, in the heralded age of antiquity, as is the case in modern forums, that talk is cheap. This singular truth will show you the errors of your ways. Chop heads first, ask questions later. In Vanya's omnipotent opinion, the best time to engage in social intercourse is when all the enemy's heads are brewing in the pot or being shrunk down to the size of a golf ball, or just not anywhere around you... and you bask in the glory of all the captured booty from your campaigning. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

Vanya is happy He could be of assistance to youz.

GAH

[Shahed]

LOL

Kalt, I could not agree with you more. The battlefield AI can be ok at times using good tactics, but the strategic AI is poor. This topic has been discussed before and the general concensus seemed to be "this is Total War". Obviously I won't buy that for an explanation for the wonderous things the AI does. I switched to MP and play that mostly now. But in SP I recommend playing Glorious Achievment, and do nto grow too big in size, if you want a more reasonable game, whatever the difficulty. For example if you are Spain restrict yourself to Iberia. If England keep to your lands, do the occasional Crusade to take a rich province in the Mediterranean (sp). This I found makes the game much better, the AI generally makes it a world against you game if you beciome too strong and take lets say 30-40% of the map. At this stage no one will be allied or neutral to you. Avoid making war, and only engage if you are attacked. If you are attacked make war, but not otherwise. Always restrain yourself from becoming "too strong". It is an artificial solution, but I found this makes the game more interesting.

I have not tried the WesMOD, but heard loads of positive reviews That is probably the better solution.

[Crash]

Kalt, I know exactly what you are talking about. I have tried in vain to play a more diplomatic game, but I always end up conquering other factions who insist on making suicidal war against me when I had no intention of attacking anyone. But once drawn into a war and conquering the offending function, I get drawn into a spiral of getting attacked, conquering, and getting attacked again because my faction gets larger everytime I successfully defeat an attacker.

What I would like to have is a game where I fight occasional battles in defense of my homeland, and gradually build up my provinces to a high state of development. I agree, MTW tries to make the game difficult for the human faction by stubbornly keeping the AI factions at war with you even though it's clearly suicidal for them. If the AI had a more rational strategy for each AI faction, one of true self-interest for them, then the strategic game would be more playable and realistic.

I have found that restraining myself from all out conquest of the map, only delays the inevitable, the AI factions keep attacking me so I have to keep conquering them. I suppose that this may be intentional, the name of the game being Total War, but it actually makes the strategic game less interesting. The GA game attempts to create a happy medium, but with same AI engine it is not successful.

Aside from using the WesMod, the gameplay factors for the strategic game should be modifed to make alliances harder to make, break, and maintan by increasing the morale, happiness and influence penalties for breaking alliances and losing wars. There should be more tangible benefits for making alliances in order to make it a more serious matter to make and break them. Some of this is already in the game, but the AI factions don't seem to take them into consideration.

The most annoying AI mistake is when it starts a suicidal naval war that destroys it's own trade and usually ends up in a civil war. This just happened in my current GA game where the English, who had a big trade network, attacked me. I won the war at sea, and the English fell into civil war, and lost over half of their empire including England, all because the AI ignored the fact they would lose enormous trade income from the war. I anticipate the Italians will make the same mistake. It's sad that it's so predictable.

[MiniKiller]

Solution is simple. Play using only peasents and archers. with no upgrades dont build beyond 2 or 3 upgrades to ur castle and so on.

[Portuguese Rebel]

I find the way they coded the naval warfare to be most illogical. Take this game were i was dominating the seas with the italians. The italians and me depended on the trade we did with each other. But then they got dumb (like they usually do) and sunk one of my boat. Then all hell broke loose. My trade and his was gone and we slugged it out at sea and i crushed them utterly since my land army was far superior. Why did those fools started that war? They could not win it for sure but there they go, on a suicidal move. This gets old and is starting to annoy me.

[Longasc]

You are right. The most exciting battles usually take place early on, later on they are mostly decisive.

HINT: Try playing LATE Era, the AI has much better units there and well developed provinces and is likely to cause you much more problems than in early age

[The Last Emperor]

Like most have said, playing on expert just mean having more of the AI factions making those senseless war on your even when it dont benefit them in t medium or long run. It really doesnt matter what fractions the AI are coz in the end they are still being used in the same way even when we are just happy to sit and slowly play out the SP campaign. Its always us versus the whole world on expert...and it gets rather boring and predictable. The AI strategic side of the SP need to be more diverse for all the different fractions. Hope playing expert on RTW dont simply mean us versus all the rest of the AI as soon as we start to build up.

[pdoan8]

In VI, diplomatic is improved a little bit. I've not yet see major improvement on the AI strategy other than the trading part. It's only my 3rd campaign (original campaign) with VI.

[spmetla]

The lack of AI is definatley one factor. But another that has been mentioned many times is the lack of different types of attacks.

There should be different attacks like:
Pillage - attacking villages for money
Massacre - killing villagers for fun
Raze - destroy crops, roads, bridges, towns

and then the usual conquest of land.

Though for the game as it is I found playing on hard is the best all around. The AI cheating isn't too bad at this diffculty and you can still get marriages and peace treaties.

Also try to role play as best as you can. Doing a tech build up that would be more historically correct, building armies that include those crappier units you don't usually want.

All in all the game is as hard/fun as you play it, if you play to win you're gonna win, if you play to have fun you're gonna have fun.

As long as they keep improving the Total War series with each succesive game I'll be happy, expecially if they'll make a Shogun, Mediveal revisted edition or something.

[Crash]

Actually, I often pillage and raze in MTW already. When I just need some money, but I don't want another province to defend, I'll conguer a province just for the money, and then abandon it. A couple of turns later, I'll conquer it again for the money and abandon it again. I'll keep doing it until I don't need the money anymore or I want to use the army for something else.

If I intend to abandon a province for strategic reasons, I'll destroy all the improvements to get some cash out of it before I withdraw. I consider that "pillaging and razing". Haven't found a way to massacre yet, except for inquisitions. It would be a highly appropriate option for Mongol invaders though.

[Kalt]

Quote[/b] (Crash @ July 23 2003,12:57)]Actually, I often pillage and raze in MTW already. When I just need some money, but I don't want another province to defend, I'll conguer a province just for the money, and then abandon it. A couple of turns later, I'll conquer it again for the money and abandon it again. I'll keep doing it until I don't need the money anymore or I want to use the army for something else.

If I intend to abandon a province for strategic reasons, I'll destroy all the improvements to get some cash out of it before I withdraw. I consider that "pillaging and razing". Haven't found a way to massacre yet, except for inquisitions. It would be a highly appropriate option for Mongol invaders though.
SO what do you do when you abandon a province, then no nation moves in to recapture the province in the next turn, and a massive loyalist rebellion breaks out giving your opponent 1000+ powerful troops far stronger than anything you have?

[Crash]

Good point Kalt, there's always that risk. But I only abandon a province under duress, such as a massive Mongol force on my doorstep, so there is no doubt that the province will be taken the next turn.

When I've taken a province and the enemy retreats to the castle, I'll abandon it before the siege is ended, so the province just reverts back to the original owner.