VH post 1.02: still way too easy...

[Slaists]

I 'clicked' through the end turns of my Russian VH campaign after the point when I had satisfied the long campaign goals (30 provinces, etc.) in 1780.

Here is the result (see attachments).

1799: Russian empire has per turn income of 86K+ (and growing)
1799: Russian empire has treasury of 2,750,000 ... (need I comment? and that's after I've been buying 1 province protectores for 100K a pop just for fun or just granting AI factions 100K/turn)
1799: The count of Russian provinces = 32 and has been so for the last 40 or so turns. So, there was no "blitzing" involved; neither there is real 'world domination' involved.
1799: No AI faction even tried to challenge the Russian empire's position since it gained the last two required provinces (Poland and Lithuania) 40 turns ago.
1799: Russian empire has 4 full stack professional armies + garrisons + 3 large fleets.
1799: Russian empire has an awful monarch... Still: no problem with unrest, diplomacy or anything...

The second attachment shows commodity prices in 1799. Note: Russians do not control all of the trade nodes: 3 in Indonesia, 1 in Madagascar, 1 near Nigeria, 2 near Brazil. The rest are AI owned.

So, if you ask me: it's still way too easy on VH campaign difficulty. And, game-play wise, there is still no challenge in the end-game, no challenge in 'maintaining' the empire. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the end-game challenge the goal of the last patch?

I suspect, the intent of CA when establishing a system whereby a player needs to MAINTAIN an empire until 1799 was to give the player some (meaningful, hopefully) challenge after the provinces required for long campaign win were conquered. In that regard, I find CA has failed to deliver. And don't take me wrong: I find the start-game and early-mid-game quite engaging and fun. Good job in that part, CA!

--
update: I have added screens with minimaps showing the extent of Russian holdings in all three theaters.

[AussieGiant]

I'd go back to chess mate.

[JAG]

Agreed, still far, far too easy - but I don't know what they can really do about it now except for compeltely re writing the AI to actually be a challenge. Getting naval invasions working probably will help, but that could make the game just as easy... Post patch the game is a lil bit tougher, purely because the AI will attack back every now and then, especially after you have taken one of their territories - but the problems with diplomacy remain etc. Who knows they might make some improvements to make the game harder, but I think I will stop playing until the next patch, like I did last time. :/

[Slaists]

Agreed, still far, far too easy - but I don't know what they can really do about it now except for compeltely re writing the AI to actually be a challenge. Getting naval invasions working probably will help, but that could make the game just as easy... Post patch the game is a lil bit tougher, purely because the AI will attack back every now and then, especially after you have taken one of their territories - but the problems with diplomacy remain etc. Who knows they might make some improvements to make the game harder, but I think I will stop playing until the next patch, like I did last time. :/

I could throw in several suggestions:

1. Allow AI make peace with each other (CA is supposedly working on this)
2. Allow AI to make anti-player diplomatic blocks
3. Add a theater or two which would allow for ANOTHER huge empire to arise by the mid-game
4. #3 would definitely need naval invasions to be fixed
5. Reoptimize the economic AI

As to #5: I see most of AI factions being "feeble and destitute" by late mid-game. As I conquered a few trade nodes from the Dutch, I realized part of the reason: the huge blue stacks sitting on the trade nodes contained mostly fluyts (350 upkeep), warships and an occasional Indiaman. No wonder, a trading nation like the Dutch is not making money. They are spending more in fleet upkeep than they are getting back in trade revenue...

On the same token, I have tried gifting/trading for techs AI factions 100,000 a turn for several turns. The AI faction would still show up as "feeble and destitute". I wonder what are they doing with the money.

[anweRU]

The AI's territorial economic development is also very poor. The AI has a fetish for religious buildings, at the expense of industrial buildings.

It also taxes heavily, so that town wealth does not grow, and new towns don't pop up late into the game, after it has managed to researched several farming & enlightenment techs.

The AI prioritizes unit recruitment at the expense of economic development, and thus fails to utilize whatever financial bonuses it gets from CA in the long term...

In my pre-patch Swedish game, whatever money I gave to the AI was used to recruit more units. As a result, the AI nations fought some pretty epic battles amongst themselves, which I watched from the sidelines (it was a semi-peaceful campaign, only ~35 regions in the end). 600K can buy a lot of units...

[AussieGiant]

I can't help but remain positive.

based on what you guy's are explaining here, if CA manage to get the sea invasions sorted out, which seems to be a product of their new infinity location map they implemented for this game, AND get the socio-economic-political AI sorted out...then we might just have more than we can handle.

Did I just say "socio-economic-political"?

[Slaists]

1The AI's territorial economic development is also very poor. The AI has a fetish for religious buildings, at the expense of industrial buildings.

2It also taxes heavily, so that town wealth does not grow, and new towns don't pop up late into the game, after it has managed to researched several farming & enlightenment techs.

The AI prioritizes unit recruitment at the expense of economic development, and thus fails to utilize whatever financial bonuses it gets from CA in the long term...

3In my pre-patch Swedish game, whatever money I gave to the AI was used to recruit more units. As a result, the AI nations fought some pretty epic battles amongst themselves, which I watched from the sidelines (it was a semi-peaceful campaign, only ~35 regions in the end). 600K can buy a lot of units...

#1: It's reasonable to build lots of religious buildings to bring a conquered province under control fast. However, the AI should be coded to be able to DESTROY the unnecessary religious buildings once the province is pacified. On the same token, the AI should be coded to destroy unnecessary fisheries and replace them with trade harbors.

#2: That IS a problem. In my campaign, economic growth (due to enlightenment techs and medium taxes) was the key to my treasury staying above the water. Interestingly enough, due to bonuses on VH, AI out-teched me by a good margin all through the game, but seemingly the AI DID NOT USE the techs to develop provinces. I purposely did not try to rush the research though. I did not build any other universities just the starting one and added more only as part of the conquest (if there was a university in the conquered province; I left it and used it).

#3: I did the same thing and wondered what the AI was doing with the money. I would give a destitute faction 100K + for several turns just to see it still being "destitute" 5 turns later. In my case, I even did not see them raise more troops and go on a rampage... No idea, what they did with the cash.

I can't help but remain positive.

based on what you guy's are explaining here, if CA manage to get the sea invasions sorted out, which seems to be a product of their new infinity location map they implemented for this game, AND get the socio-economic-political AI sorted out...then we might just have more than we can handle.

I keep my fingers crossed. I'd love to have a meaningful (as opposed to how VH was handled in MTW2 and RTW) and challenging campaign game on VH; Easy should probably be easier than it is now though to serve the pool of players that are new to the game.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

The AI's territorial economic development is also very poor. The AI has a fetish for religious buildings, at the expense of industrial buildings.

The AI is also very poor in its decision to always build fisheries instead of trade ports. Hanover's only port was for fish only; great move. Most factions can only have limited trade because they don't build extra trade ports. I assume that most human players maximize their amount of trade ports to have a maximum amount of trade partners.