Experiment to see how hard game is...

[Kobal2fr]

I don't think that was a major factor, my 15 year old son recently started playing MTW2 and he uses exactly the same tactics with exactly the same results.

Its basically a flaw in the game design that allows players to win easier by explioting the reward system.


Exactly, the problem is that as it stands the game rewards this sort of play and because it does it encourages players to expliot that approach.

If this were not the case and the rewards were removed then players would be forced to play the game as it was intended to be played and utilise all aspects of the games design.

While looking for something else entirely, I stumbled upon this little nugget in descr_campaign_db.xml :

<settlement>
      <sack_money_modifier float="0.4"/>
      <exterminate_money_modifier float="0.5"/>

Tweaking this up, or maybe down, or even sideways is probably the key to making blitzkrieg less doable/profitable. Might tank the AI's already appaling financial abilities though, especially early on in the "grab land from rebels" phase. Needs a test subject. Your son seems a perfect candidate for sneaky and unethical science

[Sentinel]

I think the point that the original poster was making is related to the difficulty setting.

The game provides easy, medium, hard and very hard setting for both campaign and battle maps. A total of 16 different levels of difficulty. In addition this can be fine tuned by choosing harder (e.g. Scotland) or easier (e.g. England) factions. This should enable a suitable level of challenge (with a risk they could loose) to any player, irrespective of their intelligence, experience or playing styles.

Easy / Easy settings should be suitable for

my semi-retarded cousin, 12 years old...

Medium / Medium settings should be challenging for most, average intelligence, players coming to the game for the first time.

Hard / Hard setting should present a challenge to players with a few campaigns experience. That have learned the how to use all the different element of the game.

Very Hard / Very Hard settings should be for skilled, experienced players that know how to effectively use all the elements of the game to achieve victory conditions.

The fact that the OPs friend (despite military training, good intelligence) was able to easily complete a VH/VH campaign, whilst ignoring the advantages that some of the main elements could give him, is proof that game gives insufficient challenge at the higher settings.

Currently the higher setting difficulties are set too low. I have played several campaigns on VH/VH and have never felt that I was about to loose this campaign. The worst situation I have experienced is that I have made a series of blunders and said to myself, this is going to set back my campaign 10 turns to recover.

I know that by turtling for 50 turns, never blitzing, adopting a host of house rules, I can make the game more of a challenge, but this seems to be the complete opposite to the principle of the game.

As a leader you are to use your skill and experience to conquer the other factions as efficiently as possible. You should be aggressive and use any weakness in the enemy’s defences to your advantage. Your enemy should be trying to do the same to you.

If you adopt the strategy that because the enemy is stupid and makes a stupid move.
E.g.
He camps a full stack army being paid to do nothing, for ten turns, next to a rebel settlement.
He charges his cavalry at your archers, sat behind a row of stakes.
He tries to siege your settlement, garrisoned with a full stack, with 4 units of peasants.
Then I should not exploit his stupidity and should likewise make equally stupid moves.
E.g.
Not take over the rebels yourself, but allow him plenty of time to attack the rebels if that’s what he eventually decides he wants to do.
Position your archers in front of your stakes to prevent his horses getting a nasty splinter.
Sally forth with only your peasants to make it a fair fight.
Is completely at odd with the principles of being a good General. Of being smarter, more skilled than your opponent.
You shouldn’t be asked to increase the challenge by matching your opponent’s stupid moves with your own stupid moves.

I accept that the AI is never going to give the same challenge as a human opponent would. No game with this level of complexity could every be cost effectively programmed to do that.
Most games of this type have to “cheat” in some way to give the computer an advantage to increase the challenge.
Most gamers accept that harder setting will give the computer advantages to compensate for the lack of AI. Most experienced gamers hope / expect that setting the difficulty to VH/VH will make the challenge very hard with a good risk that they might loose the battle / campaign, if they make too many mistakes.

CA have used some factors, but not enough, to make the game more challenging. They seem to have aimed to game too much towards the casual player and forgotten to cater for the full range of gamers.

[diotavelli]

I The fact that the OPs friend (despite military training, good intelligence) was able to easily complete a VH/VH campaign, whilst ignoring the advantages that some of the main elements could give him, is proof that game gives insufficient challenge at the higher settings.

No, it's not. It's a one-off, unrepeatable test with circumstances that made its validity highly questionable. How many gamers have military training? As a proportion of the total, it's probably not that high. The OP's friend is therefore an atypical test candidate. His background greatly increased the likelihood he'd blitz and anyone who visits this forum regularly could tell you that that approach is the one the game is least capable of challenging.

As I said previously, if the OP's friend had a different background, the result of his campaign could have been very, very different: would that prove that the game is sufficient "challenge at the higher settings"? If not, why does the contrary apply?

Currently the higher setting difficulties are set too low. I have played several campaigns on VH/VH and have never felt that I was about to loose this campaign. The worst situation I have experienced is that I have made a series of blunders and said to myself, this is going to set back my campaign 10 turns to recover.

But, if you check previous threads, you'll find that other players (some quite experienced) have failed to complete the game in time or have got themselves into a situation they felt to be irredeemable. You can't generalise from your own specific situation and prove a case thereby.

I know that by turtling for 50 turns, never blitzing, adopting a host of house rules, I can make the game more of a challenge, but this seems to be the complete opposite to the principle of the game.

As a leader you are to use your skill and experience to conquer the other factions as efficiently as possible. You should be aggressive and use any weakness in the enemy’s defences to your advantage. Your enemy should be trying to do the same to you.

This seems to be a misrepresentation of the situation. The game includes a diplomatic and economic element that is clearly intended to be significant. The fact that your playing style doesn't lend you to utilise these elements doesn't mean the game is at fault, necessarily.

You shouldn’t be asked to increase the challenge by matching your opponent’s stupid moves with your own stupid moves.

Agreed. As you said previously, you've been held up by as much as 10 turns due to your own blunders: presumably the AI didn't match your stupid moves with stupid moves of its own? Or is this one of those irregular verbs:

I blunder
You make ill-advised decisions
The AI makes stupid moves

?

Most gamers accept that harder setting will give the computer advantages to compensate for the lack of AI. Most experienced gamers hope / expect that setting the difficulty to VH/VH will make the challenge very hard with a good risk that they might loose the battle / campaign, if they make too many mistakes.

As previous: some "experienced gamers" have abandoned/lost campaigns due to making too many mistakes. Clearly, as they play more, they'll play better and lose less often but the point still stands.

CA have used some factors, but not enough, to make the game more challenging. They seem to have aimed to game too much towards the casual player and forgotten to cater for the full range of gamers.

I very much doubt they forgot experienced gamers when they made M2TW. It seems they didn't do a good job of preventing blitzkrieg from being too easy a route to victory. That's a whole different thing. Most other approaches are far less easy and so the difficulty levels work well enough.

Here's an analogy. Monopoly is one of the most popular board games in the world. Regular players know what real estate to buy to effectively guarantee victory. Do they always buy that real estate? Well, the ones who do probably don't enjoy Monopoly for long. Does that mean Monopoly is a flawed game? I don't think so. The players who mix the game up and try different strategies play it for years.

You can say the same about most games, computer-based or otherwise. There are easier and more difficult routes to victory for all of them.

The fact that one person once beat M2TW on VH/VH proves nothing. The fact that a particular playing style makes winning it too easy is regrettable but it doesn't mean the game is flawed.

[Ulstan]

How challenging did you find the WRE campaign in BI? Set him up with that and see what happens :D

Alos, MTW2 will be horrifically easy as long as players can simply blitz their way to victory. This would obviously not have worked historically, and it's a very poor design that allows you to maintain an empire by sacking cities as fast as possible.

The player (representing the sovereign or the state) should get almost nothing from sacking a city. Sacking a city should raise dread, tank the cities infrastructure, decrease the population quite a bit, and make those troops be upkeep free for a few turns. You get virtually no gold to fund further conquests, because that is basically the way it worked historically. Commanders didn't routinely tell their troops to go forth and indiscriminately rape and pillage in the newly city, because that was often the exact opposite of what would be most economicallyhelpful for the empire. Instead they exterted much effort preventing such things from happening.

Also, players shouldn't be able to take an AI's city and sell all the buildings and then abandon it.

The AI is far too vulnerable to a scorched earth set of tactics, and such tactics are ahistorically rewarding to the side that adopts them.

[alpaca]

I second Didz opinion, the game is much too easy if you blitz. Sacking is just too powerful, it should be dropped altogether or at least the AI should defend their settlements more effectively.
This is definitely a design flaw, together with the fact that difficulty settings barely scale at all. On vh the game plays very much the same as on medium.

If you have a sound strategical and tactical understanding you'll have no problems with the battles, either, because CA removed the stat bonuses in M2TW. Add to that the exploits that even new players can easily find and you get the situation you describe above.

If you can afford to wait a few months, I'll try address as many of these points as possible in Italia Invicta. The game will be much harder on the higher difficulty settings because I'll introduce more meaningful asymmetries between the player and the AI, for example regarding restrictive features (a glimpse of that has already been revealed: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87295) that aren't imposed on the AI.
This could turn off a few people but since I can't make the AI better I think it's necessary to have it cheat better, like in Civ4 for example. There, the AI gets huge bonuses on the high difficulty settings which provides a challenge even for very good players.


By the way: Even though the game is quite easy for good players, there's a lot of players for who the game is difficult enough, or even too difficult in some cases. The problem here is, as I said above, that the difficulty levels don't scale well.

[Corka]

I find it well and truely believable that someone brand new to the game could win on VH/VH. I don't think the 'military training' would be of awesome help either. On the combat side all you need to know is that flanking is good, and spears beat cavalry.At times its like the AI doesn't even realise this as they rush out their cav to charge your spears head on.

I don't find it terribly unbelievable that someone would abandon diplomacy and merchants and just go on their way to conquering. When my friend first played the game, I distinctly remember him getting his first merchant, moving it over to a resource and going '.... I get 5 gold a turn from this? The merchant cost 500. I am never ever building one of these again.'

And then with diplomats you have to physically move the damned things across the maps, and for what? Trade rights, and Alliances which for the most part are fairly worthless.

Seems only natural to me that a new player would just grab their armies and go a conquering. Its not hard to see "More cities = more gold + bigger armies to conquer more cities."

[Sentinel]

Originally Posted by Diotavelli
No, it's not. It's a one-off, unrepeatable test with circumstances that made its validity highly questionable

You are quite correct it doesn’t. There is no way this would stand up to scientific scrutiny and would probably be dismissed in a court of law. I apologise for not making my opinions clearer.

This evidence should be viewed with other facts
E.g.

Reports that a few payers have managed to complete a VH/VH long campaign in about 20 turns.

The number of threads / posts discussing ways to mod the game to make it more challenging.

The number of threads / posts discussing member disappointment at the level of difficulty the game offers.

My own performance. I do not have any military experience or training (unless you count a year in the boy scouts a long, long, long time ago) and my knowledge of medieval history is very poor. I do have experience of playing MTW, VI, RTW and BI but would not class myself as an expert.

This and many other incidents have satisfied my level of proof that there are a small, but significant number of people that would have preferred the VH/VH setting to be more of a challenge.

The final piece of evident milord before I rest my case is

Originally Posted by Diotavelli
I very much doubt they forgot experienced gamers when they made M2TW. It seems they didn't do a good job of preventing blitzkrieg from being too easy a route to victory.

****************************************

Originally Posted by Diotavelli
How many gamers have military training?

Probably not many, although how much relevance / advantage real life experience in modern warfare gives to someone playing a computer game set in medieval times is debatable. It certainly would not help him manage the politics, spies, aristocracy, economy or any of the other non-military aspect of the game. Try turning the question around. How much of an advantage is having experience of playing this type game to someone in the real military. Would it be worth putting on your CV when applying for a job? (General Lusted is an exception to the rule)

Originally Posted by Diotavelli
This seems to be a misrepresentation of the situation. The game includes a diplomatic and economic element that is clearly intended to be significant. The fact that your playing style doesn't lend you to utilise these elements doesn't mean the game is at fault, necessarily.

Never said it was.
If your style does not include these, Fine.
If you can still easily win whilst not using some small elements of the game also fine
If you can still easily win whilst not using several significant elements of the game, on its hardest setting, then this suggests that the game is not offering enough challenge.

Originally Posted by Diotavelli
Agreed. As you said previously, you've been held up by as much as 10 turns due to your own blunders: presumably the AI didn't match your stupid moves with stupid moves of its own?

Yes it did, that’s how I managed to catch up again.

Originally Posted by Diotavelli
Here's an analogy. Monopoly is one of the most popular board games in the world. Regular players know what real estate to buy to effectively guarantee victory. Do they always buy that real estate? Well, the ones who do probably don't enjoy Monopoly for long. Does that mean Monopoly is a flawed game? I don't think so. The players who mix the game up and try different strategies play it for years.

True, but board games are played against other humans that learn to adapt to any given strategy. This game does not learn and repeats the same mistakes over and over. The interest with monopoly is the variation introduced by the human players.



You are probably right that CA did not forget their experienced players. They chose not to cater for them.

IMO There is small but significant number of player who currently feels the VH/VH level does not offer significant challenge.
CA could have made the higher levels harder, to cater for these player without inconveniencing other players.
CA thoughtfully provided many level settings, but unfortunately made the jumps between them too small, so that the range of challenge did not match the range of players requirements.

If the VH was harder then for those that are less experienced can turn down the difficulty settings until they achieve the balance they require.

Those who’s playing style means they wish to impose their own handicaps (by adopting a set of house rules etc) can turn down the difficulty until they achieve the balance they require.


Given that they had to balance their sales, marketing, programming cost, timeline etc I cannot say whether in the big scheme of things, this was a good or bad decision by CA. I just feel that it was a missed opportunity to satisfy more of its customers without penalising the rest.

[Didz]

Here's an analogy. Monopoly is one of the most popular board games in the world. Regular players know what real estate to buy to effectively guarantee victory. Do they always buy that real estate? Well, the ones who do probably don't enjoy Monopoly for long. Does that mean Monopoly is a flawed game? I don't think so. The players who mix the game up and try different strategies play it for years.

Sentinel has already answered this point rather well but I thought I would add my own support to his response.

I happen to own a book (The Monopoly Book by Maxine Bradley) which describes strategies for playing Monopoly and essentially there are two basic player strategies normally referred to as 'Prince' or 'Pauper'. The Prince strategy relies on the acquisition of high rent sets e.g. BLUE (Mayfair, Park Lane) whilst the Pauper concentrates on lower value but high payout sets like ORANGE(Vine Street, Bow Street, Marlborough Street).

However, the point which Sentinel makes is the key to the success and replay value of this game. No player is likely to be able to acquire the properties he wants simply by rolling dice and moving round the board, particularly if you play the Auction Rule for unwanted title deeds. Therefore, at some point the strategies become dependant upon the negotiating skills of the human players in setting up deals for the exchange of title deeds.

This is why computer controlled monopoly games don't work, the computer either gives away vital properties or refuses to negotiate reasonably on anything, and so the result ends up determined by pure luck of the dice.

To put your analogy into context. Monopoly is a flawed computer game for preceisely the points which you make in your post, and is only popular when played against human opponents. Likewise, MTW2 would not be a flawed game if we could play it against 15 other human opponents, in fact it would be absolutely brilliant, the reason it is a flawed game is precisely because it lacks strategic challenge and options.

[Kobal2fr]

You. Own a book. About Monopoly strategies.

And you've read it, so it's not like it's one of those embarassing christmas gifts from deadly enemies that lay all too visibly on your shelves, to the subsequent (and somewhat cruel) mirth of all your guests ; like an .mp3 of Britney Spears somehow winding up in your playlist between Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, "it's not mine it's not mine my sister downloaded that I swear !"

I find this deeply worrying. Perhaps even more so than your implicit acknowledgment that you've gone and played computer monopoly.

[Didz]

You. Own a book. About Monopoly strategies.

Yep! its actually very interesting with lots of statistical analysis of average returns on investment for various properties and sets. Plus, a lot of information on its history and variations to the rules. There is even information of special historical games and monopoly events, such as the exhibition game played with and for real money which was held in the Manhattan Savings Bank in November 1973. The players were:

Brain Nuttall - National Monopoly Champion of Great Britain
Lee Bayrd - Monopoly Champion of Western America
Don Lifton - USMA Champion of the Midwest Regional Mens Invitiational Monopoly Tournament.
and
Russell Smith - Chairman of the Manhatton Savings Bank, who was playing Monopoly for the first time and acted as Banker.

The game actually ran out of money and so the bank had to lend them some, but in the end it had to be abandoned after 90 minutes with no clear winner and all funds were returned.

Incidently, the longest recorded monopoly game was played continuously for 41 nights and 42 days. The largest outdoor game was played over an area of 550' x 470' at Juniata Colege Huntingdon Pennsylvania, using real streets. The largest indoor game was played on a board 52' x 52' , the winner was Lem Barney of the Detriot Lions football team.

I have actually owned two copies of computer monopoly, one for the Commodore 64 and one for the PC, neither of which are currently installed as the game is now available as a DVD game.

[alpaca]

You. Own a book. About Monopoly strategies.

And you've read it, so it's not like it's one of those embarassing christmas gifts from deadly enemies that lay all too visibly on your shelves, to the subsequent (and somewhat cruel) mirth of all your guests ; like an .mp3 of Britney Spears somehow winding up in your playlist between Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, "it's not mine it's not mine my sister downloaded that I swear !"

I find this deeply worrying. Perhaps even more so than your implicit acknowledgment that you've gone and played computer monopoly.

Hey Monopoly is a very good game considering it's one of the first "modern" board games released. Keep in mind it was released in the 30s and is one of the first complex games for more than two players. A lot of the classics like Chess, Go and chequers are for two players only which is a much better-controllable situation.
I agree it's not up to scratch anymore, but it's still a very good attempt.
The main problem is that it shares one of the fundamental bad things that happened to almost all early modern games I know, which is a termination problem. If all players really play sensibly, the chance that the game will be finished is fairly low. This is even worse with a game like Diplomacy where there's no randomness involved.

By the way, we Germans immensely enjoy playing authored games, like "Die Siedler von Catan" which introduced a new wave of very complex, well-balanced and challenging games in the late 90s. They have then been dubbed by English-Speakers "german-style board games" which is admittedly a bit weird.

Edit: Although Britney Spears is really a no-go area :P

[Kobal2fr]

"It's one of the first board games" doesn't mean there aren't virulent strains of the plague with more entertainment value to them than your average game of Monopoly . I mean, you don't play Pong anymore, do you ? (And now my mind reels because the idea is dawning on me that there's probably a USMA Regional Pong Champion out there...)

And I'm not knocking board games either, I love 'em. Settlers of Cathane ? Brilliant game !
But given a choice between playing Monopoly and say, drilling a hole all the way through my skull with a rusty pickaxe, I'd consider the pros and cons of an open-topped brain, and find the silver lining in septicaemia. Monopoly lost its appeal to me when I was 8 and there weren't any more metal pieces or dice to swallow.