Another difficulty thread
I wasn't quite sure what the view on thread necromancy is here so I figured I'd start this as a new thread.
I played way back in the .8 version days, always on VH/M as suggested.
Coming back recently I thought I'd ease my way into a H/M Sweboz game, and try out the BI.exe.
I noticed in the early part of the game at least the AI still developed cities far faster than I did, and recruited far more troops. Every once in a while I'd wonder if H campaign difficulty was too easy, and then a full stack of troops I wish I could afford to hire descended on one of my overstretched armies.
That said, later on I seemed to catch up to the AI as far as city development (except in MICs, interestingly) despite my fairly poor settlements. AI factions did continue to be able to afford far more troops than I could, and better quality, though. A raiding party sent through Roman territory did extremely long last damage, and I don't think the sacked settlements recovered a couple decades later. Turning off the fow to look at the world once or twice I noticed the grey and yellow deaths were not recruiting a lot of large stacks, possibly due to income problems from corruption in distant provinces. I'm thinking of uping the difficulty back to VH for my next campaign, especially if I choose an easier factions.
I'm just curious about other people's experiences, not so much just what difficulty they play or prefer, but whether the AI kept up in development, or just wasted all their money on soldiers regardless.
Re: Another difficulty thread
VH/M for RTW and BI if you use alex h/m is ok but if you have an easy faction VH/N is still reasonable.
I wish we had a chance between VH and H. hard is easy for me but VH is not with alex.
Re: Another difficulty thread
In my campaigns with KH, the Romans and Seleukids (I assume this to be true for any AI faction though) seem to have 0 construction time for any government buildings. I noticed that conquering Rome but not destroying every building, just MIC and gov't building, then allowing the AI to re-conquer it will lead to a lvl 1 gov't and at least lvl 1 MIC only a few turns later. I also noticed the impossible speed at which the AI upgrades MICs; this leads me to believe that it can spawn those and gov't buildings at will.
Fighting Makedonia as KH, I had to wipe them out within 2 years or face Makedonian peltasts with family members and levy hoplites...
And in my current Aedui campaign, I am up against p. extraordinarii with my botroas... No solduros or neitos or even gaesatae in sight for at least five years. Then, as my machine limits me to playing on normal unit size but the script was clearly designed for huge unit sizes (AI gets 200 citizens for every unit recruited) I am not at all surprised that usually by the time I kill my second faction all settlements have reached city level ('xcept if I play KH-rush_balkan of course). Then it's usually by the time I have moved either west and up to Capua or east up to Antiocheia (due to the nature of AS it is extremely frustrating to try and stick to the VC when expanding to the east - getting besieged by one or two phalanxes a city every turn etc).
A regular pattern is that I build low-level barracks in newly conquered settlements first-thing, set a navpoint to my homeland and start spamming skirmishers to be disbanded in my home cities, because otherwise the capital would end up as the smallest of all settlements. The cumulative upkeep does considerably slow down civic development of course...
The most fun campaign so far in this light is my current Aedui campaign (because the whole VC area already contains factional levy barracks). In consequence, I would almost want to suggest making regional barracks a no-faction-required building... On the other hand, this would allow Greeks to recruit dunaminaka --- which would likely mess up multiplayer balance. Or it would enable the player to get very creative about their armies. Or it would lead to massive, fatal, cpu-wrecking, monitor-blowing CTDs.
Re: Another difficulty thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nachtmeister
In my campaigns with KH, the Romans and Seleukids (I assume this to be true for any AI faction though) seem to have 0 construction time for any government buildings. I noticed that conquering Rome but not destroying every building, just MIC and gov't building, then allowing the AI to re-conquer it will lead to a lvl 1 gov't and at least lvl 1 MIC only a few turns later. I also noticed the impossible speed at which the AI upgrades MICs; this leads me to believe that it can spawn those and gov't buildings at will.
Actually AI does not build gov buildings at all. These are placed by the script, othewise the AI would place its gov just randomly. Note that those gov markers (homeland, expansion) are valid for your faction only - these are too placed by a script at the start of the campaign.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nachtmeister
Then, as my machine limits me to playing on normal unit size but the script was clearly designed for huge unit sizes (AI gets 200 citizens for every unit recruited) I am not at all surprised that usually by the time I kill my second faction all settlements have reached city level ('xcept if I play KH-rush_balkan of course).
That is weird. The script is supposed to add popuation according to your nit size (200 for huge only, 50 for normal.) :shrug:
You may wish to verify this observation of yours and if the script would indeed give 200 popuation fo unit recruitment on normal, than it is a bug and should be reported in the bug forum. :idea2:
(Personally I think that it is not the case, otherwise you will get HUGE CITIES rather than "city level"...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nachtmeister
In consequence, I would almost want to suggest making regional barracks a no-faction-required building... On the other hand, this would allow Greeks to recruit dunaminaka --- which would likely mess up multiplayer balance. Or it would enable the player to get very creative about their armies. Or it would lead to massive, fatal, cpu-wrecking, monitor-blowing CTDs.
This is a fairly good idea and it actually WOULD NOT mess multiplayer, because mutiplayer need a completely different EDU designed for that specific purpose.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nachtmeister
Or it would enable the player to get very creative about their armies. Or it would lead to massive, fatal, cpu-wrecking, monitor-blowing CTDs.
LOL!:laugh4:
Re: Another difficulty thread
AI has the bonuses but believe the worst nightmare is Romani Reforms that AI does not have to wait to conquer 90 sttelement to trigger marians.
Re: Another difficulty thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
V.T. Marvin
(1)Actually AI does not build gov buildings at all. These are placed by the script, othewise the AI would place its gov just randomly. Note that those gov markers (homeland, expansion) are valid for your faction only - these are too placed by a script at the start of the campaign.
(2)That is weird. The script is supposed to add popuation according to your nit size (200 for huge only, 50 for normal.) :shrug:
You may wish to verify this observation of yours and if the script would indeed give 200 popuation fo unit recruitment on normal, than it is a bug and should be reported in the bug forum. :idea2:
(Personally I think that it is not the case, otherwise you will get HUGE CITIES rather than "city level"...)
(3)This is a fairly good idea and it actually WOULD NOT mess multiplayer, because mutiplayer need a completely different EDU designed for that specific purpose.
LOL!:laugh4:
1)Ahh, now finally I understand (although the logic should have long kicked me in the face by now) why it is so important to only play one faction per EB session...
2)Maybe I am imagining things or not getting my campaign together fast enough. In that case, I am thinking it might (on my machine) not lead to depleted cities if the AI did not have that bonus - plus this would do something to counter the not very realistic yellow or silver or green death.
3)Thing is, we'd still have an image problem. Casse regional barracks just don't look like Pahlava regional barracks... Especially because the Pahlava ones have a jacuzzi but no liquor bar...
Thank you for taking the time to describe in detail to me the inner workings of that script.
Re: Another difficulty thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Atraphoenix
AI has the bonuses but believe the worst nightmare is Romani Reforms that AI does not have to wait to conquer 90 sttelement to trigger marians.
I think they need only 25 settlements, but do the ai romani ever get that far`?
Re: Another difficulty thread
They usually swallow up Gaul and Greece. Maybe Iberia.
