Difficulty levels in R:TW - Will it be a challenge?

[Jambo]

Speaking as someone who has enjoyed and thrashed the previous installments of the Total War series, I would say without question that my gravest concern for RTW will be its level of challenge?? Other than the sometimes overly long battles and the gross micromanagement, I would say that the biggest impact on my gradual decline in playing STW and MTW was the ease at which one could defeat the AI, both on the strategic side and the tactical battle elements of the game. Increasing the difficulty level to Expert led to silly offsets in AI army morale and therefore wasn't a satisfactory experience. As a compromise, I then found myself inventing and playing by my own Ironman rules. These would include: following GA targets only, only conquering in response to being attacked, assigned provincial leaders having to remain in the province, etc, etc.

Therefore, it's perhaps no surprise that the greatest concern for me will be in the level of challenge to the human player offered by RTW's AI on both aspects of the game. Having said that, one factor of RTW which has intrigued me somewhat is the supposed separate difficulty level settings for the strategic portion and battle elements of the game. Needless to say this will undoubtedly lead to me playing Expert on the strategic side and Hard in the tactical battles (mainly to avoid the potential silly morale offsets gained at Expert). This is assuming that the increase in difficulty levels produce similar effects to what they did in MTW.

So, the big Q:

Will RTW offer a worthwhile challenge or, similar to previous Total Ease incarnations, will it be a stroll in the park that requires intense human modding to produce a capable challenge?

Does anyone have any information to suggest either way?

The only thing I can think of just now is a potentially simpler Tech Tree, with weaker, older units becoming obsolete as the game progresses. The AI was notorious for fielding poor tech units in MTW and STW - mainly because of provinces constantly changing hands and being downgraded as a result.

Regards

Doc

[Basileus]

It will propably be a challange at start 1-2 campaigns i reckon( for STW MTW players), i thought MTW became so easy i did some rules aswell played mostly GA tryed to Role Play my games etc..lets hope its far more difficult then what im expecting though heh

[hotingzilla]

Well, I play MTW at Expert level, and I don't tihnk it is much of a challenge still left. Bascially, I want better AI instead of handicapping the player or boosting the computer AI in terms of morale.

[Tamur]

...Bascially, I want better AI instead of handicapping the player or boosting the computer AI in terms of morale.

This would be a dream come true indeed. We all know, though, that all the research into AI isn't trickling down to the game market.

Difficulty is most often implemented in a few afternoons of work by game teams, setting things like starting cash, unit stat boosts or degradation, and the like. Anyone who has played any of EA's sports games (like football -- not American, don't know about that) knows that difficulty level increases only result in unfair/unrealistic stat boosts for the other team. BTW, Pro Evolution does a heck of a lot better with realistic diff level.

But anyway, It's the same for strategy games on the whole -- the AI doesn't have different levels of complexity, it remains the same while the environment surrounding it changes.

Black & White, for all its failings, was a brilliant example of what can happen when a quality AI is put into a game. When the computer's behaviour becomes realistic AND unexpected (unexpected even to the programmers who designed it), then you've got a game that can be truly challenging.

Instead of changing the environment around the AI, you change the depth of decision-search, or make the AI an informed/uninformed agent, or add constraints to the decisions it can/will make, etc etc. There are so many things that could go into game AI that aren't being utilised...

Anyway, enough rambling. I do hope that RTW will be better than the MTW engine was, at least on the battlefield level if not the campaign as well.

[ThijsP]

MTW did not only have stat changes in strategic battles: IN higher levels of difficulty the AI uses more strategies then just a straight on charge. Althouhg its not really a big difference, but maybe in RTW this concept is improved.

More ambushes and flank attacks would be fun.