View Full Version : Creative Assembly Final Word on difficulty levels? Devs, anyone?
I have searched both here and in the official totalwar.com forums for information regarding MTW's four difficulty levels but have found surprisingly few answers. This is worsened by the fact that many of the older threads that show up in such a search lead nowhere (404 'file not found' errors). Similar searches in the STW forums gave me the same meager results.
The one thing I am absolutely sure of are the starting florin amounts for the human player at each difficulty level whereas the AI gets the same amount as the Normal setting for all difficulty levels. Beyond that the general consensus is that the game 'makes thing harder for you'. I guess I am trying to find out exactly what that means.
Do higher difficulty levels bring 'smarter' AI opponents or merely wealthier, better equipped ones or worse, those with unnaturally 'augmented' units? Does the AI suffer less from random events and the like? Besides less florins what other categories are you handicapped in as the difficulty increases?
To put it bluntly... If playing at Expert level means I have to face freshly trained peasants that fight like teenage kensai that have been given anabolic steroids and skin grafts with alligator hides then I'm not playing at the Expert level. I am more than willing to put up with more frustratingly random events, quirky leaders, intense intrigues, increased threat of assassination, etc.
[This message has been edited by Spino (edited 10-01-2002).]
[This message has been edited by Spino (edited 10-01-2002).]
i would like to know this too...
I am very interested in knowing the answer too. I have noticed that in Expert, even though I outnumber the enemy 2 to 1 (at similar quality of troops), the kill ratio is at 1:1. This is after taking normal precautions like fighting from high ground and flanking as much as possible.
In a similar situation on Hard, the kill ratio would have been 2:1 in my favour or better.
Are troops stats boosted for AI factions?
Would appreciate an answer from a CA programmer or anyone knowledgeable in this.
Are you sure the AI does not get more gold as the difficulty level increases? My impression is that it definitely does - as it did in Shogun. In Shogun, one thing I read said that the AI got more resources on hard and on expert it got favourable modifiers on the battefield plus it could build whatever it wanted, regardless of money. So it sounded like hard disadvantaged the player strategically, but not tactically and so was the most appealing to me.
In MTW, I'm not so sure - I tried hard last night as early English and attacked Wales. One solitary rebel spear unit was hit by one of my spearmen in the front, knights and urban militia in the flanks and fought on well for seemingly a minute or more. On normal, it would have crumbled almost immediately (especially as all its longbowmen comrades were fleeing cavalry at the time). So I am guessing the AI gets battlefield bonuses on hard.
The French also amassed a much bigger force more quickly on hard than they did on normal, so I am pretty sure they get more gold or other strategic advantages.
I've played 4 full (i.e. completed) campaigns, 2 on hard, 2 on expert.
Over the course of the 2 hard campaigns, I only lost battles when I was outnumbered 2:1 on flat maps.
On Expert, I have actually lost battles that I was kinda expecting to win.
Draw your own conclusions.
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It's getting warm in here...that must be one hell of an INFERNO!
Yoko Kono
10-01-2002, 16:50
i *think* that on expert the ai micromanages it provinces as such more *efficiently* (in other words it cheats)
in actual battles im pretty sure, as in STW, that all enemy troops have the stats of +1 valor increase hidden to you of course
so a volor 0 peasant would fight like a volor 1 peasant
Rosacrux
10-01-2002, 16:53
Quote Originally posted by Simon Appleton:
Are you sure the AI does not get more gold as the difficulty level increases? My impression is that it definitely does - as it did in Shogun. In Shogun, one thing I read said that the AI got more resources on hard and on expert it got favourable modifiers on the battefield plus it could build whatever it wanted, regardless of money. So it sounded like hard disadvantaged the player strategically, but not tactically and so was the most appealing to me.
In MTW, I'm not so sure - I tried hard last night as early English and attacked Wales. One solitary rebel spear unit was hit by one of my spearmen in the front, knights and urban militia in the flanks and fought on well for seemingly a minute or more. On normal, it would have crumbled almost immediately (especially as all its longbowmen comrades were fleeing cavalry at the time). So I am guessing the AI gets battlefield bonuses on hard.
The French also amassed a much bigger force more quickly on hard than they did on normal, so I am pretty sure they get more gold or other strategic advantages.[/QUOTE]
If you haven't seen a single handgunners (val. 0) unit being squeezed (front and both flanks) between three (number: 3) full, silver shield, val. 3 pronoiai allagion cavalry and stand for more than 2 mins, inflicting 44 losses in all three units, before routing... well, you haven't seen didley.
BTW about the money, on another thread it has been clarified that AI gets 8000 florins in normal, expert and hard. That is, if you haven't tweeked the amount at "normal". If you have... then they'l get whatever is on "normal".
[This message has been edited by Rosacrux (edited 10-01-2002).]
Since LongJohn mentioned that turning morale off doesn't actually turn it off but instead adds +12 to morale, I've been playing my single player, normal difficulty, campaign like that. I find that it makes the battles against the AI more challenging. The AI is much more persistent in battle and yet there is still routing. The AI will still quit the field if it thinks it cannot win.
The +12 morale might be a bit high of single play, and it's definitely too high for multiplayer. Something like +8 morale might work better.
Funny you should mention that Puzz. I've actually been playing with a universal +2 morale to all the units in the SP campaign.
Seems to make a much better and more challenging experience helping somewhat to remove the Ai's tendency to rout, rally, move back to fight, but rout again as they approach, then rally, etc, etc which gets very annoying.
I have been contemplating a +4, but for the moment i have been quite satisfied with the +2. I'm concerned that too major an increase would mean the high starting morale of the knights would become a wasted quality.
Remember when morale reaches a certain level, units become prone to charging and attacking without orders. So you could end up with a situation where the increases to morale would actually become a hinderance to the knights. PLus there are times when routing is actually a sensible option for the AI. For example, if you're not careful you may reach a situation where the high morale knights will always fight to the death, which is not necessarily desirable.
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
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=MizuDoc=
Doc,
The +12 is definitely too much. Like you, I also got tired of 2 hour battles which amounted to watching the AI bring on reinfocements, march up to my lines and rout from a few ranged unit casualties. I can see why LongJohn thinks archers are effective enough, but it's due to the low morale setting he likes.
Interestingly, the +12 morale makes loss of the general practically irrelevent which balances off the AI's tendency to loose its general early in the battle. You can't win the battle by killing the enemy general. Likewise, +12 morale makes getting the right unit matchups very important since flanking won't make a unit rout immediately. The AI is good at making correct matchups, and does it a lot faster than you can. After all, it can see the combat ratings of all the units and selects matchups accordingly. It will flank with a unit that's not strong enough to take you on head-to-head, and with morale higher those flanking units just keep coming. One of my best battles was defending with 1300 men against a 6000 man AI army. The best I could do was 3500 kills while loosing all my men. Ironically, my general routed and escaped. It was one heck of a tough battle for me to get those 3500 kills.
I've had some tough smaller scale battles as well. In one I was defending a hill at the back of the map which means nothing can get behing you. It's artificial, but I had second thoughts about defending out in the middle against an AI force equal to my army's size at teh high morale setting. The AI sent 6 cav units to my left which was protected with 2 spear units, and just waited while infantry attacked my right flank and center. At one point I turned one of my spear units to meet AI infantry which had broken through on the right. Immediately, the AI's cav attacked and I had to turn the spear back to the left to meet them. I won that battle, but it wasn't that easy.
I was about ready to give up on the single player campaign until I tried the higher morale setting. Eventually, I'll experiment myself with a smaller morale boost as you are doing. For me, I think the optimum value is somewhere between morale on and morale off, but probably more than +2. I also think the same is true for multiplayer, but it ultimately is just a playing preference.
There is no one particular level of morale or fatigue that's right. The battle system will tolerate a modest range on both of those parameters. The lack of some options besides rather low and rather high on those parameters is dissappointing.
Kraellin
10-02-2002, 00:30
"Since LongJohn mentioned that turning morale off doesn't actually turn it off but instead adds +12 to morale, I've been playing my single player, normal difficulty, campaign like that." ...turning it off? how do you turn morale off?
yup. i'm also of a mind that morale is a bit low, and whereas i havent actually tweaked it yet, i was thinking about 4-6 points all around.
K.
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longjohn2
10-02-2002, 00:35
I can't comment on the strat map.
On the battle map, the a.i. gets progressively better up to hard level. On expert level, the only behaviour difference I can think of, is that it gets a bit more leeway to camp near the map edge if a suitable position is available.
The combat strength of the a.i. units is affected by the difficulty level.
On easy its combat effectiveness is reduced by 30-40% (can't remember the exact figure).
On hard it's increased by 10-15%, and on experct its 30%. 30% being around 75% of the increase you'd get from 1 valour upgrade.
Additionally it gets +4 morale on expert, and the player gets +4 on easy.
Ahhh Puzz, there ya have it....
I currently give a +2 to the morale of all units on Expert level. That gives a total of +6 for the AI and a +2 for me and that seems to work a treat. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Thanks for the explanation longjohn.
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=MizuDoc=
So how DO you go on about giving +2 morale to all units?
There are two files with stats I can see, for units and buildings.
Do you have to add a +2 for each units morale? How do you "mod" +2 to all units morale for, say, normal level campaign?
Sorry if I'm asking stupid stuff, I tried to read the mods forum but even with search I only got gazillion posts about great mod ideas or what people are planning to do, not exactly HOW to do it =P
Plz halp.
Hi Ligur,
Well it's quite complicated, but in short yes, you have to mod each unit's honour/morale value by +2.
If you go into the downloads section of the .org then you can find Target's production files which are Excel sheets with macros which makes it much easier to Mod. However, they are too easy to follow and much experimentation will probably be required for you to get the hang of it all, unless you are competent with Excel.
Furthermore, you have to remember to save the Excel sheet as a tab delimited text file in the MTW folder. Be sure to back up all old files.
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
I'd like to know the differences that pertain to the strategic map aside from starting gold.
I started a new game on hard after rolling on normal. It was a *lot* more difficult. Some things I noticed were:
Much harder to keep newly conquered territories from rebelling. So much so that I had to invade with double amount of troops I needed to win the battle just to try and get the chance of rebellion on the first turn of occupation down below 20. On a related note, the rebellions themselves were brutal. 'Peasant' revolts in which the rebels had almost a full stack, half of that being elite troops...
AI much more aggressive. My generals and strategic agents were getting rubbed out, or at least targeted, every turn.
AI has more cash/resources. Huge stacks of monsters units all over the place.
In short, I was in over my head. Back to normal for now, but I'd really like to know the differences so I know what to focus on.
Thanks
olaf
Erithtotl
10-08-2002, 02:58
I just started an English campaign on Expert after having little difficulty on Hard. It definitely affects the battle map. In more ways though than just the effectiveness. I invaded Scotland with a force of Militia/spearman/peasants and archers, against 2 units of clansman and a unit of archers. I was forced to attack uphill but had a 2-1 numerical superiority. I quickly surrounded the clansmen, and had committed my peasants, leaving me no reserve. It was a pitched battle, with the clansmen giving better than they got, but I still had the edge in #s. But here's where I was shocked. After I committed my peasants in an attempt to flank his men, the computer CHARGED MY PEASANTS WITH HIS ARCHERS! He hit them right in the flank, running downhill, they broke, and the rout was on. I'm not sure if the bonus to morale that made the AI more willing to do such an unconventional move, but I was shocked and impressed.
As far as the strategic map goes, definitely a lot of assassin activity. I've built up a bunch of border forts to reduce the trouble they cause. I haven't noticed any difference as far as heirs go. General loyalty might be a little lower but not much.
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