No Graduation in Difficulty!

[Slaists]

Anyway, I started a campaign as the Dutch, and at least for them it's MUCH more reasonable than GB. I'm so fithy stinking rich....

that's exactly why I abandoned my Dutch campaign :) felt boring being so rich, lol.

[Graphic]

that's exactly why I abandoned my Dutch campaign :) felt boring being so rich, lol.

We'll see. I'm completely dependant on trade income, so if I go to war with the wrong person and they decide to actually raid my trade route, I'll be crippled. Yeah I'm filthy rich but it's still a very fragile thing.

[Fisherking]

If you have not noticed Trade Income is affected. Ivory which was once as high as 55 is now 19, and all other commodities are likewise much lower. Not that this in and of its self is so bad. It is just the overall result of all the changes.

All of the town improvements have increased to the point of being not worth building.

Military upkeep places a full stack army into a bankrupting proposition.

Maintaining a navy of ships better than sloops is also out of the question.

Any of these taken alone is not bad. It is just the compound effect.

That in its self isn’t even that bad if you want the added difficulty on H or VH. It just shouldn’t be there on N or E.

As to history, Prussia was not exactly the powerhouse some seem to think it was. It did manage to unite the German States in the 19th century but it did not destroy Austria or anyone else. Russia and Prussia managed to absorbed most of Poland. Sweden managed to loose its other lands to Russia. It was the Russian Tsar who lead the ground forces that occupied Paris and forced Napoleon’s first abdication.

However, Great Brittan did become the economic powerhouse due to its trade and its vast Indian holding, in the 19th century. It did manage to defeat the French in the Iberian Campaign, while Prussia was still subservient to France.

Great Brittan also maintained the worlds strongest navy. Not something that is now possible even on the lowest game settings.

There is nothing wrong with the game being hard to even impossible at upper difficulty settings. It just should not be that was on the lower ones.

[Slaists]

If you have not noticed Trade Income is affected. Ivory which was once as high as 55 is now 19, and all other commodities are likewise much lower. Not that this in and of its self is so bad. It is just the overall result of all the changes.

All of the town improvements have increased to the point of being not worth building.

Military upkeep places a full stack army into a bankrupting proposition.

Maintaining a navy of ships better than sloops is also out of the question.

Any of these taken alone is not bad. It is just the compound effect.

That in its self isn’t even that bad if you want the added difficulty on H or VH. It just shouldn’t be there on N or E.

As to history, Prussia was not exactly the powerhouse some seem to think it was. It did manage to unite the German States in the 19th century but it did not destroy Austria or anyone else. Russia and Prussia managed to absorbed most of Poland. Sweden managed to loose its other lands to Russia. It was the Russian Tsar who lead the ground forces that occupied Paris and forced Napoleon’s first abdication.

However, Great Brittan did become the economic powerhouse due to its trade and its vast Indian holding, in the 19th century. It did manage to defeat the French in the Iberian Campaign, while Prussia was still subservient to France.

Great Brittan also maintained the worlds strongest navy. Not something that is now possible even on the lowest game settings.

There is nothing wrong with the game being hard to even impossible at upper difficulty settings. It just should not be that was on the lower ones.

I agree about the lower settings. It just does not make sense to have a difficulty slider if the difficulty is the same in all positions.

There is a post by alpaca on the twcenter page: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=256090, which details adjustment coefficients for different difficulty settings. It seems, at least by design intent, there is a difference between difficulty levels in how expensive it is for the player to raise troops.

Maybe that difference is not sufficiently 'different' though. Maybe it does not function. But sure, from that list it seems, most of the modifiers are on the AI side rather than on the player's side.

As to the game: I like it how it plays no on Hard campaign setting. I have not tried Normal and Easy though, so I cannot tell about differences.

[Dayve]

I have had to abandon my first ever campaign due to being economically defeated.

Britain, VH/M. I've been at war with the Huron since they attacked me on turn 2 or 3, they never accept peace. I had an army ready to go on the offensive but the 13-states started getting torn apart from all sides by the Cherokee, French and Iroquois, so i diverted it over there to help them out. Ever since then, it's all been downhill. All told i have about a stack and a half across my entire empire, and 10 4th rates split between Europe and America 70/30.

I've been hanging by a thread on +/- 700 income for around 5 years, but when you constantly have to retrain units after battle the treasury slowly sneaks into bankruptcy. The USA emerged with 2 of the former 13 colonies nations, but the rest remained 13 colony protectorates of mine. I took a province from the Cherokee so i would have a base closer to my protectorate so i could protect them. I offered the USA an alliance numerous times but they absolutely hate me, and now they've declared war on me, putting me at war with absolutely everybody in the America theater except for the Plains nation, enemies coming at me from all sides and no money to retrain troops i lose.

To make matters worse my government lost an election, replacing my 7-star admiral with a 3-star one, my 7-star treasurer with a 3-star one, and my 6-star governor of America with a 2-star one. An emergency election has not solved this, nor has kicking a candidate every turn.

To make matters even worse, my fleet was away close to Italy helping my Austrian trading partners with their Barbary states problem, and France blockaded my main trading port in London. At least 4 turns before i can get back to do anything about it... in the meantime i'm hemmoraging over 4,000 a turn.

So i quit.

[Slaists]

I have had to abandon my first ever campaign due to being economically defeated.

Britain, VH/M. I've been at war with the Huron since they attacked me on turn 2 or 3, they never accept peace. I had an army ready to go on the offensive but the 13-states started getting torn apart from all sides by the Cherokee, French and Iroquois, so i diverted it over there to help them out. Ever since then, it's all been downhill. All told i have about a stack and a half across my entire empire, and 10 4th rates split between Europe and America 70/30.

I've been hanging by a thread on +/- 700 income for around 5 years, but when you constantly have to retrain units after battle the treasury slowly sneaks into bankruptcy. The USA emerged with 2 of the former 13 colonies nations, but the rest remained 13 colony protectorates of mine. I took a province from the Cherokee so i would have a base closer to my protectorate so i could protect them. I offered the USA an alliance numerous times but they absolutely hate me, and now they've declared war on me, putting me at war with absolutely everybody in the America theater except for the Plains nation, enemies coming at me from all sides and no money to retrain troops i lose.

To make matters worse my government lost an election, replacing my 7-star admiral with a 3-star one, my 7-star treasurer with a 3-star one, and my 6-star governor of America with a 2-star one. An emergency election has not solved this, nor has kicking a candidate every turn.

To make matters even worse, my fleet was away close to Italy helping my Austrian trading partners with their Barbary states problem, and France blockaded my main trading port in London. At least 4 turns before i can get back to do anything about it... in the meantime i'm hemmoraging over 4,000 a turn.

So i quit.

Hehe, sounds like a tragedy of a great nation. I had the same situation with Hurons & while the 13 colonies were being torn apart by the French, Iroquois and Cherokees. I decided to concentrate on Hurons (with Hessians [which are cheaper] and some auxiliaries) and conquering the pirate bases instead of helping the 13 colonies. Once the Hurons and the pirates were dead, I marched the Huron army into New France and sailed the pirate defeaters to Carolinas. It was fun cleaning out tipis from Maryland, New York and Boston and granting the provinces back to the "13 colonies". Took about 10 years, but I restored them to their original glory, so I could 'finish the mission', LOL.

By the way, on VH, French seem quite willing to accept a ceasefire if you hand it to them in a battle time or two... Keeping a fleet near the channel seemed critical for this.

The Spanish (who get dragged into war along with the French) tend to agree to a ceasefire outright (on the same turn), I guess, because I have no provinces that border theirs.

[Fisherking]

There are other modifiers at work also. I made peace with France. They gave me two regions worth 2200 each. I had no garrisons there of course. Well, my income went down. I had exempt them from taxes to grow the wealth and ease unrest but I had to reverse that. Then of course the Inuit declared war. And this is a test on easy!

I don’t mean that my income went down a little. It went down to 2000 per turn. I don’t know what is at work here but it is a bit silly, especially on easy.

[Ordani]

Depending on the population of the region and various governmental factors you have town watch costs independent of their taxation state.

[Dayve]

I've also begun a new game as the Spanish, which is even more difficult than the British. All neighbours declared war immediately. UP took Flanders, Italian States took southern Italy, Genoa is raiding in Milan, Cherokee took California, Portugal raided towns and farms in Madrid, Louisiana declared war, France broke alliance, income is 2,000 a turn, navy is practically non-existant, army consists of 3 units of line infantry and a general, king is mad, ministers are crap, and 3 of 4 trade routes are being raided.

There's 1 option open to me... Go on the offensive with what i have (3 units of line infantry and a general) or sit and go bankrupt and eventually be conquered by Portugal, who can afford a full stack navy and army.

[Eusebius86]

that's exactly why I abandoned my Dutch campaign :) felt boring being so rich, lol.

You're rich till you go to war with the wrong faction. One campaign I made the mistake of going to war against France, before GB was at war with them. This meant that French warships outnumbered mine 4:1 on the unfriendly seas. My trade income dropped from 36k to 20k a turn for about 12 turns till I could deal with them properly...