No Graduation in Difficulty!

[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.

[AussieGiant]

I understand everyone's position.

What I'd just like everyone to keep in mind here is that a "technical requirements" document on AI functionality is a massive undertaking.

Ironically the AI technical requirements document in the end is an opinion on how the AI should work.

Now it seems too hard, which should be no surprise to anyone after we collectively spent the last 6 weeks saying how easy it is.

If the graduation of difficulty is not work on newly started campaigns, then that is a problem.

However if a developer took our comments back the AI team without confirming we had started a new game they would tell him to get out of the room and come back when it was confirmed.

Why?

Because point 3 of the 15 page 550 point technical requirements document on AI behaviour, says;

"AI logic must have a start point in order to allow programming a baseline to work from."

[Fisherking]

I may be wrong, but the impression I have is that all the beta testers just love to play Prussia on VH and attack everything in site.

Hence the name “Prussian Mafia”.

Not everyone enjoys fighting every AI faction on the first turn. It is no longer about being able to build an empire based on trade to finance armies. Income has to be based on taxes and only what can be supported can be built. It is to costly to have troops. It is barely possible to up grand your economy and hardly worth the investment. Navies are too expensive to bother with.

Only the Central European factions or perhaps the Indian factions are viable. Far flung regions are not worth holding. It only increases the number of potential enemies.

If you cannot build an economy that will support your armies and navies what is the point?

In my current campaign I can not afforded to build a one stack army and a fleet to take the Pirates on…I certainly cannot take on the Cherokee, French, and defend the sea lanes!

[Tillan]

Continueing a UK game was fun. Before the patch I had 10k coming in per tern, with about 26 terretories.
After the patch I was losing about 6k a turn. I was planning on blitzing the remaining terretories needed to win, I had armies, and a good size navy, and more money then i knew what to do with. 2 years after (5 turns), ive taken only one terretory that i was forced into taking to defend my holding addequetly, been forced to scupper most of my navy, leaving only a few ships in europe and the americas, and had to disband an army stack.

I also had to try and get peace with a couple of nations who started to raid my trade routes. Great fun ^_^

[Dayve]

I don't think it's as bad as some are making out. It's a little screwy i know, but not all that bad. With my GB campaign i have trade rights with a lot of people, Austria, Savoy, UP, Prussia, Sweden, Maratha, and so on and so forth. In the America theatre i've taken the two pirate islands and one from France and built trade ports in them, giving me a lot of sugar to export. I have also managed to hold on to moose factory, despite constant attacks from barbarians.

Now, i haven't invested anything in my economy at all except a farm upgrade because population was having trouble growing, so it's all gone on naval and military technology. These regions were bringing me a nice profit until the crap hit the fan a few years ago and i ended up with enemies on all sides and had to start recruiting.

I had close to a full stack in moose factory, and my navy altogether was 3 4th rates in Europe and 3 in America. I took 2/3 of that army from moose factory and began to march toward 13 colonies to help them out, and built a fort to defend moose. I raised another half stack from one of my island holdings in America to ship out to 13 colonies to help out in the north, because they're getting spanked from all sides.

I also went to war with France and had to expand my navy in Europe from 3 to 8 ships. I was going to do the same in America but by the time i had done everything else my income was hanging by a thread at 200 a turn.

So... what's wrong with this? Nothing, actually. It should be very expensive to increase fleet size by 160% and army size by 50%, whilst at the same time losing trade due to chain reactions of war declarations all around you.

[Graphic]

If you cannot build an economy that will support your armies and navies what is the point?

In my current campaign I can not afforded to build a one stack army and a fleet to take the Pirates on…I certainly cannot take on the Cherokee, French, and defend the sea lanes!

Exactly. They could have tweaked it so it's good, but as it is, I had to disband almost all of my starting units (navies included) and completely abandon one of my territories (Moose Factory) to support one army. You should be able to support one army at the beginning of the game without having to declare a national state of emergency

You can't even get indiaman into trade lanes barely, they keep getting raped by pirates, and your military vessels are so expensive to replace that you can't even fight back. I'm afraid to do anything with my navy besides raid the trade route off the U.S. east coast.