Your starting difficulty level

**Tricky Lady** · 09-20-2004, 16:49

Normal/Normal for a start. I'll check your replies to see which advantages (or "cheats") the AI gets in order to put up a more challenging game. Unless I really become very expert in this game I will not allow the AI to cheat

**Praylak** · 09-20-2004, 20:47

The problem with harder difficulty levels in MTW was the unrealisticly inflated stat modifiers especially noticable with vanilla units. Although this made the battles more difficult in a sense, not for the reasons I would enjoy it for. Will I be challenged more by the AI, or do they just get extra money and stat multipliers? I'm interested more in being "out-witted" rather than "outspent".
That is why, and only why I choose normal.

**Degtyarev14.5** · 09-20-2004, 22:36

I think I touched a nerve there...

A.

**Praylak** · 09-20-2004, 23:38

Originally Posted by ArseClown

I think I touched a nerve there...

A.

I just felt your original point should be emphasized more.

**son of spam** · 09-21-2004, 02:45

Expert/hard

I don't mind the AI cheating on the campaign map (if it indeed does so on expert) but I do mind the AI cheating on the battle map, where I get most of my enjoyment anyway.

**Red Harvest** · 09-21-2004, 04:03

Fair enough, I don't disagree with your logic, I've just chosen a different path. I realize that I'm spotting the AI units quite a bit of valour on the battlefield in MTW/VI. However, the AI needs the help. It is very frustrating at times though, having lower tech units fight like DEMONS against my better troops.

**Degtyarev14.5** · 09-21-2004, 09:00

Praylak, good call. I didn't stop to think that not everyone here knows how the mechanics of the game work.

Red Harvest, I think you may be missing the point. The AI shouldn't need the help. I realise that AI is extremely difficult to program, and that an AI can only be as intelligent as it's programmer. Nevertheless, I feel that CA - and any developer of any game that lends itself primarily to single-player - is obliged to devote a respectable portion of their resources to ensure that their AI can stand on its own without the need for "props" in the form of stat bonuses and supply drops.

I tend to regard the majority of multi-player games as unfinished games these days: in creating a MP game, the developer's primary motivation is to force the player base to supply any required strategy and tactics. Why? Because they couldn't be bothered supplying a working AI. It's a cynical opinion, but I believe it to be pretty much on the mark.

My observation is that today, a game marketed as a single-player game is usually a multi-player game with a token AI, and a wretchedly pathetic one at that. I can not think of even one game that possesses an AI that I can not "read" and prepare for after having seen it in action a few times.

Allow me to use Command and Conquer: Generals to illustrate this. I assure you that that in SP, the AI will rush you early on with two - never one or three - anti-infantry vehicles. For the USA, it's humvees. With China, gattling tanks. GLA: quad cannons. They will invariably come around via a back route and target your resource gatherers. Little wonder I tend to have a few tanks sitting around...

A.

**Bob the Insane** · 09-21-2004, 13:38

Originally Posted by ArseClown

I can not think of even one game that possesses an AI that I can not "read" and prepare for after having seen it in action a few times.

I play quite a lot of MP FPS and the description you give above could just as easily be applied to a lot of human players out there... And the AI is usually more accurate..

**Degtyarev14.5** · 09-21-2004, 18:54

But there is something about being sniped by a bot with a Walther from half a map away that is sooo... cheesey.

Another instance of flawed AI, employing it's ill-conceived advantages to unrealistic and all-too-predictable effect.

A.

**ShellShock** · 09-21-2004, 19:15

Normal/Normal - in theory CA will have pitched the game to play the most enjoyable at this level for the majority of people.

**econ21** · 09-21-2004, 23:22

I voted normal/normal: a normal campaign to allow me to get a feel for the game and normal battles because then the units are closest to their historical power.

But after reading what Jerome said, I'll go for hard/hard. TW campaigns take so long, I don't want to waste time on something that turns out to be too easy. (I still break out into a cold sweat thinking of the early Homm3 campaigns that were both very long and very easy.)