Harder than Carthage?

**hoof** · 12-29-2004, 01:43

The problem is that for every empire, you will find a point where your win is a foregone conclusion. The question is how long does it take before you reach that point of no return.

One thing I liked about Moo3 (post-patch) was that when you got behind the curve vs the AI empires, you were in real trouble. Until you could sustain 180-ship battles against multiple enemies, you were in real threat of being annihilated (the 180-ship limit meant that things became equal again, as the AI could have 10x the number of ships in system than you but you only fought 180 of them). My point in bringing this up is that this is the only game I've ever played where I truly felt threatened by the AI without the need for the AI to cheat.

Unfortunately, RTW isn't like that. Unless you are in imminent threat of dying in the next few turns (or have vastly inferior units to the AI like Carthaginian infantry vs Roman footsoldiers), it is usually straightforward to build up a holding army and start rolling the AI back, no matter how big they are. RTW is particularly affected by this because a well directed army can often annihilate thousand-man armies with only a handful of losses (meaning the same army can then take on another enemy army with little loss in effectiveness). What I found was no matter how bad the initial situation, if I wasn't wiped out quickly, the AI had no hope. Sure it was fun fighting back to some form of parity, but I soon learned that each game was the same, if you played it for conquest only. Unfortunately, the AI is too fickle in the diplomacy realm, pretty much forcing you to take on the world (and repeating the same gameplay pattern again).

**The_678** · 12-29-2004, 01:51

Yeah this is what led me to start playing GA games in MTW. The same build up then steamroll thing for every faction. It would be great if they had some sort of GA thing in RTW. I don't understand why they took it out. Added great replay value to relieve the boredom of the same old conquest.

**lars573** · 12-29-2004, 16:36

The chanllenge scale for goes like this (from hardest to least hard).
Parthia
Carthage
Spain
Numidia
Gaul
Seleucids

**Spino** · 12-29-2004, 19:24

I'd say Armenia is one of the toughest factions to play. Certainly tougher than Parthia, especially when Parthia and the Seleucids decide to double team you in the early game. Once you build hordes of Horse Archers it becomes alot easier. Once you add Cataphract Archers to your ranks you become unstoppable.