Experiment to see how hard game is...

[Kadagar_AV]

So how hard is this game really? *Long rant, summary at the botttom*

Bugs and bad gameplay aside, the most frustrating aspect for me is the lousy AI. I mean, is it even POSSIBLE to lose a round?

Come to think of it, through medieval, rome, and now medieval 2 I dont think I ever did anything but win, most other games (all?) have some sort of learning curve to beat the game, not so here, in my oppinion.

Soooo, I decided to test it.

I took a friend who has NEVER played any Total War game, and let him play a campaign on VH/VH.

He got to read the manual before starting, but that's it.

So, conditions:

He decided to play Denmark (only cause we're swedes and somehow the idea of rampaging vikings just touch our souls).

As said, on very hard / very hard seetings.

advice OFF!

Long campaign rules.

patch 1.2

About him, 24 years old, X military, pretty smart. Admittedly he's smarter than the average player, but hey, this game is designed for these kind of players, from the look of it.

So how did it go?

* At first he built pretty damn randomly, only in the late stage of the game did he begin to steer provinces in different directions.

* He quickly took Hamburg as he thought he might need some distance between his capital and border.

* Her then followed up by taking Sweden and Norway.

* Now, a crusade to Jerusalem started, and he sent a general away, but quite some turns after the crusade was started. He had barely reached Byzantine space when France took Jerusalem. This army he then used to march through the Byzantine Empire, the Turks, the Egyptians and the Russians. He got tired of city fights as they were bugged beyond repair, so the strat he used was to siege a city, and autoattack it the next turn. Reinforcements he got from mercenaries, and the constant sacking of the cities and forts meant a HUGE and steady supply of cash for the whole kingdom.

* With these money, he simultaneosly jumped over to the brittish islands, and finished off england and scottland (france had taken englands mainland provinces). He got excommed, but it didnt bother him much.

* He then started attacking Russia, taking the coastal provinces and working his way inland... Then the golden horde showed up... He retreated, and gave all of the russian provinces to the Horde, in return for alliance and them attacking poland (then his enemy).

* As Poland and the Golden Horde happily killed eachother, he collected funds and did a crusade.... he then very swiftly took on Both poland and the Golden Horde at once, by now he found the game so easy he didnt even bother fighting them one on one.

* He did VERY little diplomacy....

* He finished game objectives in some 190 turns or so.

* About the battlemap, in the battles he had huge problem at first with moving his units orderly. He gave up on heavy cav alltogether as he just couldnt bother to work out how a charge should work.

* Cityfights, as mentioned, he gave up on playing alltogether out of boredom (in his first fight defending, the comp AI just stood there after one failed ladder attempt, so he had to wait for the time limit to end... Very frustrating!

* He won just about every battle, even the first when he didnt really know how to controll the units.

* In one of his last battles, the pre-battle-meter was clearly against him, and yet at the end he had a heroic victory, with 1300+ men killed or captured, and some 40 men lost on his side... And NO he didnt use any bugs or cheats, just pure tactics (something the computer clearly lacks).


If a total n00b can beat this game on the very hardest settings the first time he tries it, what does it say about the game? He built pretty randomly, didnt bother with heavy cav, didnt use his princess at all, nor his merchants.... only built one assassin, and two diplomats... a LOT of priests though.

So what's my point? Well, the game is just to easy. It doesnt really give you that feeling of "reward" when you win a battle or the game.... You just feel like a complete loser those very few and odd times you do lose a battle.

Next I plan to test it on my semi-retarded cousin, 12 years old...

What can be done about this? The problem, as I see it, is that the game is much more complex than the computer AI can handle. This is quite ok in a player vs player game, but not in a primarily single-player game like this.

All the variables and options means that human players just auto-win, as there are usually soooooo many ways to handle situations.

So to make the AI have even a small chance, they'd need to either make the game less comples so the AI can handle it, OR cheat even more than now and give the compuers outrageous bonuses, but that's not very fun either

Any ideas? Points? Rants?



Summary: A person who has NEVER before played a Total War game, beat it first try on the hardest settings, quite easily too I might add. He played as Denmark, and finished the long campaign in some 190 turns. He is smarter than the common man, and has been in the army.

My 2€

[Tambarskjelve]

Good post, and a fun read

Your friend had a few things going for him, his much trumpeted superior intelligence,
and more importantly, a knowledge of basic tactics, like flanking, as valid today as a 1000 years ago.
He also picked the right faction for a n00b, the Danes being in a safe starting position, with access to sweden, the holy grail of economic development. His initial strategy was also by the book.

However this only confirms what we know, it simply isn't challenging in a traditional way, so we need to add houserules and play in a certain way to have fun. And fun being the operative word, I still get tons of it from M2

[hisn00bness]

besides using mods such as lusted's; a very simple trick you can do is these two things:

- triple the kings purse value in descr_strat.txt
- don't blitz the AI for the first 30 turns or so. during this time only attack rebel settlements and excommunicated factions.

this will not improve the common sense of the AI; but it gives him the time and funds to build up quite decent armies.
As hungary I ended up getting attacked by 2 full stacks of Russians (boyar's sons; cossack musketeers and dismounted dvor; NO peasants) at kiev; another 2 full stacks of russians at halych in the east; all this in the same turn mind you; three stacks of turks are on the way through sarkel;
and in the west i'm having to defend Vienna and Zagreb against uber agressive venetians and danes.

[Didz]

Interesting test......its notable that what your friend did was effectively blitz the game rather than play it, which confirms my own theory that there is a problem with the game in that it allows this expliot to work.

My view is as expressed in another thread.

What is needed is a more realistic penalty for maintaining armies in the field and less reward for doing so.

As SunTzu warned "When an army engages in protracted campaigns, the resoruces of the state will not suffice. When your army is exhausted and its morale sinks and your treasury is spent, rulers of other states will take advantage of your distress and act. Then even though you have wise counsellors, none will be able to make good plans for the future. Thus, though we have heard of excessive haste in war, we have not seen a clever operation that was prolonged."

In fact, MTW2 completely reverses this rule and rewards players who conduct constant and prolonged hostilities, enabling their factions to survive on nothing but the proceeds of war.

In my opinion the game needs to be changed so that:

- troops are extremely expensive to maintain in the field and even more so in hostile territory.

- Armies should suffer attrition on a rising scale dependant upon their situation and location.

- Troops should steadily lose morale when employed on foreign soil. Such that unless provided with constant rewards they will become rebelious and desert.

- There should be little if any financial reward to the treasury from sacking cities.

This would force players to play the game, rather than blitzing it and increase the need to plan operations targetted at specific local objectives rather than indulging in wandering loot-fests.

[Marius Dynamite]

Next I plan to test it on my semi-retarded cousin, 12 years old...

LOL I burst into laughter when I read that line. Especially after the way you talk about the first guy.. Good one :)

[diotavelli]

It sounds to me that your test case got a bit lucky.

He didn't lose any battles. That's good - very good, in fact. I very rarely lose battles but there are occasions when, due to bad luck or bad planning, I simply find I have a force that is outnumbered and/or outclassed by an AI force. If the AI ambushed a couple of militia units with a half stack of heavy cav and generals, your friend would have lost in most circumstances, no matter how good he is: he couldn't run away and he couldn't have outfought them. So, luck was on his side some of the time, at least.

He didn't use his princesses or any merchants. Why not? Did he work out that he didn't need them? If so, how?

What I'm getting at is that, if your friend had been an economist say, rather than ex-military, he might have tried to make use of merchants and to build trade links and his economy. He'd have found the game much more of a challenge as, without knowing about high-value resources and their locations, he'd have struggled to get a good return from his merchants (to begin with, at least). In focusing on building his economy, he'd have found he had less cash in the early stages than was the case through his blitzkrieg approach.

As you say, he used very little diplomacy. Why? It's there in the game and it can make the whole thing more interesting. Two of your allies go to war: who do you support? One of your allies is threatened by a stronger neighbour: do you come to their rescue? None of these things are essential but they add flavour to the game; by ignoring diplomacy, your friend missed out on all this.

As Didz said, the game does seem to fail to hold its own when confronted with a capable blitzkrieger. Does that mean its a rubbish game or that the AI is rubbish? No. Because someone with a different approach would have found the game more interesting and challenging.

Most computer games (most games of any sort, come to think of it) have weaknesses that you can learn to exploit, should you wish. Does that mean they're all failed games? No.

[diotavelli]

So how hard is this game really? *Long rant, summary at the botttom*

Bugs and bad gameplay aside, the most frustrating aspect for me is the lousy AI. I mean, is it even POSSIBLE to lose a round?

Come to think of it, through medieval, rome, and now medieval 2 I dont think I ever did anything but win, most other games (all?) have some sort of learning curve to beat the game, not so here, in my oppinion.

Soooo, I decided to test it.

I took a friend who has NEVER played any Total War game, and let him play a campaign on VH/VH.

He got to read the manual before starting, but that's it.

Another thought occurs to me (apologies for rapid, double posting).

Why did your friend agree to play on VH/VH in his first ever game? Without any advice or practice? Are you sure you hadn't mentioned how "frustrating" the "lousy AI" is? Did he know that you'd never lost playing MTW, RTW and M2TW?

If you'd mentioned any of this, he might have been more inclined to be aggressive, to play a blitzkrieg approach, to try to bully the AI rather than interact with other factions as peers and so on. I accept he's ex-military but are you sure that earlier comments from you may not have informed his strategy that then proved so effective?

If that were the case, your "test" proves nothing other than that an intelligent newbie player can adopt a winning strategy if given sufficient hints as to what that strategy should be. That's not a fair test.

Of course, if you never mentioned your prior concerns and experiences playing TW titles to him and did not give him any suggestions (even implicit ones) as to what strategy might work, then your test was a good one and I retract all the above.

But, if the latter is the case, he must be a mighty confident person to leap straight into an entirely unknown game and play aggressively on VH/VH with no advice.......

[Corka]

I would have thought that 80% of players when first playing the game would throw diplomacy to the wind and go on a conquering spree regardless. I know I did. I mean, you're told from the get go 'You have to conquer 45 settlements to win.', which automatically puts players in the frame of mind to go a conquering.

[Garnier]

You have to mod the game or play with serious houserules.

The trouble is that blitzing is too easy and you can win if you get the jump on conquering. Also sacking cities gives too much money it seems. If the AI had a garrison script, the game could be harder.

[Kadagar_AV]

Tambarskjelve>>> I do of course admit that my friend isnt the "average player", but as I mentioned, I dont believe this game is directed to the average joe.

His military experience of course helped, but c'mon, this isnt rocket science... "You mean archers should be BEHIND the spears when horses are about to charge?". You could basicly get the level of tactics needed to win from reading 3$ pocket fantasy books on sale...


hisn00bness>>> I know about houserules and modding to make game better or more enjoyable, but that wasnt the point of this thread. My next campaign, I plan to conquer almost the whole world, and then give ALL of it except the brittish islands to the only other remaining faction, and then go to war... should be massive


Didz>>> He kind of blizzed yeah, but note that almost EVERY player ever play the game in the way the game points them. Basicly you stick to what seems to be working when you first get a new game... So if he blizzed, it was because the game taught him to do so.

I do like your suggestions a lot, but they are problematic as it would make the learning curve of the game significantly steeper. Newer and younger players wouldn't touch the game (it allready takes a lot to get started).


diotavelli>>> He won just about every battle, not every battle... Of course he sometimes was simply overrun, but he rarely if ever moved anything but full stacks, and a full stack of good ol' scandinavian berserkers with 2h axes can beat pretty much anything...

Oh, and BTW... he did something I VERY rarely do, namely "withdraw from battle", that is, the option you have when you also decide to auto-attack or controll the battle...

I almost never use this option, but it didnt seem to give him many if any negative traits.

His stand on merchants and princesses was "I'll use them when I need them", and he never needed them...

And yes of COURSE someone with a different approach would look at the game with another perspective... But the point is that this playstyle is what new players learn FROM the game... New players dont learn (from playing) they need merchants to win, they learn that the micro-management needed for controlling, say, merchants isnt worth it as you can beat the game regardless... And games ARE about winning, and having fun.

At least for me.... Sure I like to have fun, but I do have fun when I win... see my point? I'm not bashing the game, I have several hundreds of hours invested in different total war games, so obviosly the game has some sort of charm

And yes, most games have tricks you can learn to win... But you can not honestly say that most games can be beaten on the hardest settings first time you give them a go.... I know it takes me a bit of time in any other game to start winning against "hard" or "brutal" AI or whatever...

My friend agreed to play on VH/VH cause I said it was an experiment, to see how a new player did against the hardest AI. We challenge each other now and then, nothing mysterious about it really...

I did not in any way before or after talk about the game at all.... Nothing about blitzing, diplomacy or anything... So I did in no way suggest "blitz through and dont care about politics", for all he knew, politics might have been the only way to beat the game, by say assassination or marrying into families (as it says on the back of the gamebox)...

He did some diplomacy, but found AI to irrational to bother (kingdoms randomly blockading your ports, anyone?).

I must admit I challenged him to do it (we often do), and therefore he probably spent more energy on doing planning and testing than most inital players... Also, as usual the winner of the challenge got a beer... So of course this means any sane person would do his very best to win!




I'm not saying test is perfect, but it at least hints towards the problems...

I mean, I dare anyone to call the game challenging without house rules... when was the last time any of you guys lost a campaign?



Thanx for all the replys! I got to say this is the best forum I've ever been on.

[diotavelli]

I would have thought that 80% of players when first playing the game would throw diplomacy to the wind and go on a conquering spree regardless. I know I did. I mean, you're told from the get go 'You have to conquer 45 settlements to win.', which automatically puts players in the frame of mind to go a conquering.

This is true but the game blurb also makes much of the diplomatic and economic elements of the game. I for one didn't realise initially that I could make more money from buying troops and sacking cities than I could through building my economy.

I'd be interested to know the proportion of players who bought M2TW and simply ignored vast elements of the options for gameplay in their first few games. Ignoring diplomacy and economic development and concentrating solely on conquest is a deliberate and far from inevitable decision. The game blurb gives the impression that it will be difficult to win without handling all elements correctly (an erroneous impression but one given, nevertheless), so ignoring important elements would seem illogical without additional information to suggest the contrary.

OF COURSE someone with a different approach would look at the game with another perspective... But the point is that this playstyle is what new players learn FROM the game... New players dont learn (from playing) they need merchants to win, they learn that the micro-management needed for controlling, say, merchants isnt worth it as you can beat the game regardless... And games ARE about winning, and having fun.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Most factions start the game with a merchant: in your first game, most people would assume they'd been given this merchant for a reason and would therefore try to use him. What they "learn FROM the game" therefore is that you need to learn how to use merchants effectively, not that you don't need merchants (that's something you might realise later on).

The game throws diplomacy at you. Most factions start with a princess or diplomat and are approached throughout the early stages by the same from other factions. All of this gives the impression that diplomacy is significant in the game: I can't see how someone could think otherwise.

The idea that you'd realise diplomacy and economic development were less effective than blitzkrieg without playing the game for a considerable period or hearing from another source that this is the case is unlikely: as unlikely as guessing that the AI would be passive at sieges or that shields were bugged without fighting any battles.

If players are presented with lots of prompts from the game to develop their economies and utilise diplomacy (by the presence of diplomats, princesses, merchants and economic buildings) and yet decide, in their very first game that they don't need any of these things to win, they must be possessed of a degree of perspicacity that I don't share.

[Didz]

Tambarskjelve>>> I do of course admit that my friend isnt the "average player", but as I mentioned, I dont believe this game is directed to the average joe.

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.

Didz>>> He kind of blizzed yeah, but note that almost EVERY player ever play the game in the way the game points them. Basicly you stick to what seems to be working when you first get a new game... So if he blizzed, it was because the game taught him to do so.

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.

[Flavius Merobaudes]

When I played the game for the first time (it was RTW back then), I was very careful and prepared every offensive step twice. It didn't take me long to learn that the AI was not that aggressive. So I soon started taking more risk.

If we were able to play the campaign against a human player and still employed our same old anti-AI strategies, I'm sure we'd get our a*s kicked:
Leave a town undefended for 2 turns? No problem. The AI stack nearby would never bother taking it. Sitting three miles away in the woods is far more relaxing than keeping the enemy population quiet.

[DesertEagle]

Didz>>> He kind of blizzed yeah, but note that almost EVERY player ever play the game in the way the game points them. Basicly you stick to what seems to be working when you first get a new game... So if he blizzed, it was because the game taught him to do so.

I disagree, as someone else mentioned, the computer gives you tools other than blitzing, they give you diplomats, princesses, and merchants at the start of your game. This seems to be the game "pointing" you in the direction of using them. It does seem to me to indicate there was something driving him to use military force to accomplish his goals as fast as possible. Whether influence from you, or his natural personality, or whatever else, I couldn't say. Maybe blitzing is just the way he does things the first time he tries something, then only moves to a slower pace if that doesn't work for him.

I do like your suggestions a lot, but they are problematic as it would make the learning curve of the game significantly steeper. Newer and younger players wouldn't touch the game (it allready takes a lot to get started).

So wait, first we're saying the game is too easy and that's bad; now we're saying the game being harder would be bad. Also you make a post illustrating how players can accomplish total victory without much effort, but yet also saying "it takes a lot to get started."

And yes of COURSE someone with a different approach would look at the game with another perspective... But the point is that this playstyle is what new players learn FROM the game... New players dont learn (from playing) they need merchants to win, they learn that the micro-management needed for controlling, say, merchants isnt worth it as you can beat the game regardless... And games ARE about winning, and having fun.

Again, I believe the game tries to teach you to use diplomacy and merchants, rather than 100% brute force.

And yes, most games have tricks you can learn to win... But you can not honestly say that most games can be beaten on the hardest settings first time you give them a go.... I know it takes me a bit of time in any other game to start winning against "hard" or "brutal" AI or whatever...

But do other games that take you a bit of time to start winning against {insert highest AI setting here} enemies have a "do this and you won't fail pretty much no matter what" strategy? If not, then you're making an apples to oranges comparison. Think about it this way, if any other game had an "unlimited lives" code you used on your first play, you could win your first time against the hardest AI. Same thing here, it's just not a "true" cheat and you don't have to manually activate it. In fact, you have to manually DEactivate it by how you choose to play.

I mean, I dare anyone to call the game challenging without house rules... when was the last time any of you guys lost a campaign?

I find the game challenging, but then I don't blitz. I don't have like "house rules" in that I do this, or don't do that. But, I develop before moving on. So like I start a game, develop my core, take what rebels I can get to first. Then I develop my core some more and the new territory I captured. I treat excommunication very seriously (usually a catholic faction) and so I obey non-agression orders, and I don't let myself be excommed.

Ultimately, I don't think anyone is going to deny that, yes, if you do things a certain way, it makes the game very easy. But equally, if you know a glitch in a shooter that lets you shoot everyone else and not be hit, you'll have a very easy time with that game also.

As you said yourself, playing games is about having fun, nothing more nothing less. It comes down to choosing the most fun way to play for you, and playing that way.

If your main source of fun is the victory itself, then using exploits in the way a game is designed to make your job as effortless as possible to beat the game quickly will maximise your fun as you'll win more often. Like the guys who can beat the game in under 20 turns. Hey if that's fun, go for it! Win 10 games between getting home from work and dinnertime.

If you enjoy the road to victory as much as the final outcome, you can do that to, it's what I always do. Choose to take it slow and have as much fun as you want. Set the game to 1/2 year turns and you have time to go like molasses and have loads of fun.

I'll repeat it. As you said yourself, playing games is about having fun. As a gamer it is up to you to decide what experiance is "most fun" for you, and give yourself that enjoyment. Whether that means blitzing in vanilla, or taking the slow simmering approach in a fully modded game that gives an entirely new experiance due to the hard work of our talented community, that's up to you.

I'll leave you with this thought:
Ultimatly, the vanilla game is relatively easy. I don't think anyone here will argue that. However, it is that way for a reason. Company's make games to make money, and that's a fact of life. What is also a (sad) fact of life, is that the games that are most likely to make money will appeal to the lowest common denominator - that is the casual gamer who wants to play for 10-15 minutes when they have free time, and feel like they accomplished something. That's why you don't see very many hardcore simulators anymore, like many of Janes sims, or Falcon 4.0, where you have to spend time learning how sonar, radar, thermal layers, and flight dynamics work.

The final word (at last )- The game is what you make of it.

[Ramses II CP]

Auto-calc'ing city battles removes a small factor of difficulty as auto-calc ignores walls.

Effectively, though, this just shows what we already know, blitzing in any way breaks the game model, and the strategic AI is grossly incompetent. That last is true of all the TW games, IMHO, I'd be surprised if there was any realistic situation a player couldn't win their way out of on the strategic map.

[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.

[SoxSexSax]

Just responding to a few individual points:

The game does seem to fail to hold its own when confronted with a capable blitzkrieger. Does that mean its a rubbish game or that the AI is rubbish? No. Because someone with a different approach would have found the game more interesting and challenging.

I disagree. Blitzing (AKA Rushing) is a very common occurrence in any strategy game, and if the AI cannot cope with it (and let's face facts, M2TW's cannot) then the AI is, if not rubbish, very weak.

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.

I don't see this as a misrepresentation at all. The most EFFICIENT strategy is the strategy that wins the game the quickest, simple as. It is therefore entirely inefficient to build any non-military unit, as they are simply not needed to win within 50 turns with any faction.

The fact that a particular playing style makes winning it too easy is regrettable but it doesn't mean the game is flawed.

I disagree again. Actually, I don't disagree with the statement, but I disagree that it applies to M2TW. M2TW isn't just "too easy"...it is "easy to the point of worthlessness". Big difference. I just cannot lose a campaign unless I deliberately use a very unsound strategy. And frankly I don't feel like I should have to deliberately play badly to have fun.

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.

Please provide a brief summary of a playstyle that is not deliberately weakened to give the AI a chance that will provide me with even a modicum of challenge. And I do not consider "it takes longer" to be the same as "it is harder".

Sacking is just too powerful, it should be dropped altogether or at least the AI should defend their settlements more effectively.

Totally agreed. This would SERIOUSLY help fix the problem of "Steamrollering" and would add some much needed tactical decision making to the game. (Right now the only choice is "who's next?")

[Ulstan]

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.

Precisely!

At the very least, people shouldn't be able to gain money from sacking or exterminating cities: it should spread mayhem and destruction and maybe keep their troops free of upkeep for a turn or two, but it's not a huge revenue getter.

Ideally, it should take a while to assimilate new cities into your empire, so that you can't just blitz your way across the map in 20 turns. You would need to tear down old buildings (which should take time) and rebuild your own, convert them to your faith, and reduce the cultural penalty. This should all take time and someone who didn't take the time should have a nice civil war on their hands :)

[Dorkus]

pretty much every TW game has been incredibly susceptible to the blitzkrieg strategy. my two biggest complaints with game design are:

1. ease of the game for aggressive players

2. imbalance of units and buildings