game too easy? anyone finishing early?

[KARTLOS]

ive played two campaigns so far. english on medium/hard and sicily on hard/hard

with both campaigns i finished the game before 1300, i think around 1250. in the english campaign gunpowder had just been invented and with the sicilians that was never even reached.

i dont think that the game is too easy per se, on the hard setting it was deffinately a chalelnge most of the campaign, but it just seems likely to me that unless i deliberately stall i am likely to finish the campagn quite early and hence not see the later units let alone the new world.

anyone else finiding this?

for me the profitability of conquest meant that i was geared towards constant expansion whenever possible, and after you have reached a certain size you buld up momentum.

[BigTex]

Play on VH/VH I can promise you, you wont be finishing early. CA has truly done the AI some justice this time around, and instead of granting them attack and defense bonuses they actually made it reasonably intelligent. Also I'd suggest a more difficult faction, those are quite secluded so invasion early on isnt much of a problem. Try the HRE or the Byzantines.

[Snarkfarfar]

Heh, I wouldn't reccomend the HRE. Just finished a grand campaign with them on VH/H in 50 turns or so, so I've got pretty much the same problem as you. They have so many provinces in the beginning that you can just steamroll anything if you do it properly.

[Lusted]

Heh, im 70 something turns into a venetian campaign and i've got 15 provinces. Including Constantinople. And the Mongols have just arrived near Baghdad. 225 turns does seem to be a good campaign length, i can see me using most of those turns before i complete the victory conditions, plus i'll get to see gunpowder and the New World.

[KARTLOS]

Play on VH/VH I can promise you, you wont be finishing early. CA has truly done the AI some justice this time around, and instead of granting them attack and defense bonuses they actually made it reasonably intelligent. Also I'd suggest a more difficult faction, those are quite secluded so invasion early on isnt much of a problem. Try the HRE or the Byzantines.

the sicilians arent all that easy. you get embroiled in all the italian state wars + you mostly need to fight catholic nations to expand which is always difficult. i made efficicient use of excomunications and managed to get the pope to call a crusade on frankfurt early on which allowed me to aacquire the whole HRE early on. i also took bordeaux and valencia early which meant i was fighting wars all over europe.

im playing the byzantines now and im not finding it too slow so far, the turks have just declared war on me though.

i dont fancy very hard, i do find the game a challenge turn by turn, its just it seems very likely that i will always finish it quite earlly.

[Divinus Arma]

I haven't bought it yet. Is there a "early" "high" and "late" period choice like in the original MTW?

[KARTLOS]

no there is not

[Polemists]

Well I beg to differ, I'm just about to beat the Med/Med grand campaign of HRE and in my game I got attacked by all sides relitavely early. The extra provinces didn't help me much. You get five, most people get 3, my province down by pope got attacked all time. I usually had 3-4 cities besieged per turn, though everyone's game is different I had about a 50 turn span when every 4 turns hungary would besiege about 4 towns. So i dunno what easy vh ai you got :P

Though this may be because I allied with the Denmark,Scottland,Spain,France,England(betrayal later) side of the Pope and not against pope with Hungary,Poland,Silicy,Milan, and Venice

[Snarkfarfar]

Easy AI I don't know about ;). At one time when I got excommunicated I got attacked simultaneously by Denmark, Hungary, Poland and France. Pulled through though, defended my castles on the eastern front while obliterating France (and later mainland England just for the heck of it :P)
I think success with HRE is all about defending from the inevitable attacks while conquering at the same time. They are an action packed faction in the middle of everything.
And I'm not gonna say that the campaign was too easy, because it surely was challenging. It was just too short :/

[Valpo]

I'm in agreement the campaign AI is improved. Especially on the diplomatic front where the diplomacy seems more intelligent and a lot less random then it does on Rome.

I've had too short of an attention span to complete any of the campaigns as yet. Part of the problem is I had a good one going and then I found the time-scale thing and decided to change it and so I'm probably going to start that one over.

The Byzantines are annoying because the Catholic factions are always declaring war on them. I just finish up fighting Venice and then Milan, HRE, and Papal States all go to war with me. Annoying! Oddly enough the Turks left me alone.