Experiment to see how hard game is...

[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.

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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.