No Graduation in Difficulty!

[knoddy]

while i can see where ur comin from i think the fact that trade income is iffy is a GOOD thing, this is how it should be, u shouldnt be able to sit there and laugh as you rake in 20k a turn with ur enemies not touching ur trade lanes even tho they have full stacks of navies.

the impact of war on your income SHOULD be felt like this. i know in my marthras camp, i got to the point where i didnt want to go to war with any1 else cos the choices i had meant losing MAJOR trade partners and therefore major income and the possiblity of them pirating trade routes.

Cheers Knoddy

[seireikhaan]

My issue is that the game now becomes entirely predictable. Prussia will go after Poland and Austria, Spanish/Dutch every time, Russians/Swedes every time, Danes/Swedes every time, Brits/Native Americans every time, all usually in the first couple of terms. The AI is too aggressive at this point, and income is not nearly enough to cover expenses as a general rule.

[Vlad Tzepes]

I'm still on my pre-patch France campaign, now around year 1780 and I've noticed some worrying facts about income.

Before patch, it was really too easy. I control around 70 provinces on all theatres, fully upgraded, and all but one trade spot, each with 4-6 indiamen. I'm a republic and there's no minister below 3 stars. I have something like 8 stacks of 3rd rates (with 6-7 ships in each) and about 10 army stacks scattered all over. There's some garrisoning around, but not much. Taxes are set to 1/3. Tech is completely researched, all universities are now gone (that's not nice). This campaign was N/N.

I reached an incredible 6 million in budget before patch.

And now my budget is going down. I'm losing like 10K every turn.

So 70 provinces, fully upgraded, cannot sustain 10 army stacks + 8 fleet stacks.

It's getting interesting. I still don't know if it's playable - I'll see in my new campaign - to start next week, but it really looks tough.

[Graphic]

The overall difficulty does seem a little ridiculous now.

As GB I can only afford one fully army.
I lost Moose Factory because I can't afford to garrison it.
I've had to disband almost all garrison units except one in each city and most of my navy, in order to not go bakrupt.
It costs somewhere around ~2000 to replenish an army after it's been in a tough battle.

On top of all of this, the Natives are waaaaay too aggressive now. Cherokee are running around with way more troops than they should even be able to support. I got a stack to North America as fast as I could and half the 13 C's territory was already wiped out. Only like 7 turns in, when I set foot on NA, the Cherokee had their starting territory, plus Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. Iroquois took New York. Then on the other hand, the 13 C's do absolutely nothing, it's almost like they don't have A.I. at all.

I didn't mind because I was fixing to start a new campaign on a lower difficulty so I could actually have some money and troops to work with, but if there actually isn't any graduation in difficulty like you say, then this is starting to suck. The patch notes said there should be.

[AussieGiant]

So...now it's too hard?

Too predictable, boring, too aggressive, not enough money. Can't sustain my total domination of all other factions combined?

If I was a CA developer I'd be going out of my mind right now and saying to my program managers;

"£$^£ em, we can't tailor a game to 675 789 different people and their personal opinions."

I mean really guy's, can we for one minute think about how this comes across if you we a CA developer?

[knoddy]

So...now it's too hard?

Too predictable, boring, too aggressive, not enough money. Can't sustain my total domination of all other factions combined?

If I was a CA developer I'd be going out of my mind right now and saying to my program managers;

"£$^£ em, we can't tailor a game to 675 789 different people and their personal opinions."

I mean really guy's, can we for one minute think about how this comes across if you we a CA developer?

this man speaks words of wisdom

although i will say as developers id say they are used to this. u can never please everyone and the number of people complaining usually overshadows those praising because those praising are too busy enjoying the product to praise :D

[Ordani]

The lack of graduation due to difficulty settings is yet another obvious bug, but the game really isn't as bad as a lot of people are making it out. You really need to start over in a new game to appropriately play through the new economic settings -- all of your decisions in past savegames were predicated on a completely different set of assumptions and expectations about what you could do at any given level of expansion.

Restarting my Prussian campaign, in which I'd previously conquered Africa with pikemen just for something to do, just prior to my first landing in Morocco resulted in a massive change in events -- none of the factions I'd been sending money to so they would even field troops could support their armies and it was absolute pandemonium for a few turns. And for a change, it was fun.

[Graphic]

So...now it's too hard?

Too predictable, boring, too aggressive, not enough money. Can't sustain my total domination of all other factions combined?

If I was a CA developer I'd be going out of my mind right now and saying to my program managers;

"£$^£ em, we can't tailor a game to 675 789 different people and their personal opinions."

I mean really guy's, can we for one minute think about how this comes across if you we a CA developer?

Because people complained when it was at one extreme, they have no right to when the developer takes it to the opposite extreme? How does the logic on that work?

People just want a good balance.

[Skott]

So...now it's too hard?

Too predictable, boring, too aggressive, not enough money. Can't sustain my total domination of all other factions combined?

If I was a CA developer I'd be going out of my mind right now and saying to my program managers;

"£$^£ em, we can't tailor a game to 675 789 different people and their personal opinions."

I mean really guy's, can we for one minute think about how this comes across if you we a CA developer?

This has always been a problem for developers. The modders will probably do more for this complaint than CA ever will or could. You'll find some modders making the game easier. Some will make it a little harder and strike a good balance. And some modders will make it so frickin hard at all levels you'll pull out your hair and trash your pc. I usually avoid this last group. Those guys are far too much into pain for my liking. Seriously though, with the modding community you'll get more choices to find something that appeals to the level and balance you are comfortable with. CA cant do that. They do however allow for modders to do it for them which is nice.

[nafod]

So...now it's too hard?

Too predictable, boring, too aggressive, not enough money. Can't sustain my total domination of all other factions combined?

If I was a CA developer I'd be going out of my mind right now and saying to my program managers;

"£$^£ em, we can't tailor a game to 675 789 different people and their personal opinions."

I mean really guy's, can we for one minute think about how this comes across if you we a CA developer?

Well yes to an extent I agree, but when you go on the record stating that recruitment and upkeep costs will scale with difficulty and they in fact do not.....it's a bit of a different case then trying to please 675 789 people.

[nafod]

I posted a thread MUCH earlier inquiring about the public beta. My main concern with such an approach is that the most active players of a game are generally not representative of the market.

It appears the min/maxers got a tad too involved here.