Diff btwn difficulty levels

[paggle]

Any concensus on what makes the various difficulty levels harder? I know you get less koku to start. I'm playing expert, and it seems like I just can't catch a break when it comes to my Autumn harvest. In about 12 seasons I've had probably 7 poors, 2 terribles, 2 averages, and one good. As Mori, with such poor lands, this hurts bad bad bad. In the past I noticed the same sort of thing (crummy harvests at hard and expert levels). Further, the AI doesn't seem a whole lot better on expert. What have others out there noticed? How do they make it harder at higher difficulty levels?

[Alastair]

Well, for one thing, a suggestion would be NOT TO BUILD ANYTHING but troops until you've secured the Ronin island. Now, you should probably consult Jobeare on this, but this would seem to be a good suggestion.

[paggle]

Maybe thats a good strategy, but really what I want to know is how the designers tweak the game so that it is harder on the harder difficulty levels. What makes expert expert? Is it simply that you have to make do with less resources because a poor harvest becomes average, or is the AI any smarter?

[solypsist]

I've said this before...but here it isagain..

To see the difference in difficulty levels as far as battlefiled fighting goes, do this:

1. Select Custom Battle from the menu, select the Easy difficulty. Buy yourself one unit Honor 5 monks.
2. Also, buy one unit of Honor 5 monks for the enemy. Make sure you have selected a advantageous battlefield.
3. Attack/Defend, just make sure you have the advantage of height.
4. After a while, you should win the battle with maybe half your unit left; theenemy may be all dead or may have fled.
5. Now, do this again, but on Expert. Repeat the battle.
6. You should still win, but will probably have only 1 or 2 monks left. You probably had to kill the entire enemy unit.

that's the difference. The enemy gets harder to kill, or is less likely to die.

[Didz]

I must admit that after trying all the difficulty levels I stick to Normal now.

I just think it gives a more balanced game.

[paggle]

solypsist,

Thanks,

Sorry if you had to repeat yourself. Going through all the posts to find some discussion on this one topic seemed like a poor use of my time. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[Forward Observer]

S! Paggle


I'm sure what Soly says about the battle mode is true. As far as the game strategy and dynamics go there are a lot of varibles that are really hard to measure.

I first played through a few campaigns on easy and then played through all 7 clans on normal. I played the last game at that level as Hojo and I competed it in in 32 game years. I took 80 game years with some clans.

I next tried the Uesugi on hard, and I completed it in 25 game years,or 28 moves sooner. I thought I was so hot, that I tried Uesugi again on expert. Got my butt kicked on 3 successive tries in less that 5 years each time. It turned out that I was not the Shogun Ace that I thought I was.

My perception from all of this is that the difficulty levels are not evenly spaced. In other words from Easy to Normal is a big jump in difficulty. From Normal to Hard seems like just a small change in difficulty, and then once again a big jump from hard to expert.

I have no way to prove this. It's just my perception. My game hopefully improved during all of this, but the ramdom dynamics of the weather, crop returns, and the A.I. make for big variables from campaign to campaign. You can test this also. Start a campaign and record all your moves through 3 or 4 seasons. Start it over and make exactly the same moves. You end up in different situations each time. You may be on the road to victory or defeat in just those 4 same moves.

The A.I. at the higher levels seems to have less or no handicaps, and can use deficient spending on troops. This is probably what the developers tweaked from level to level. They may have also set the game up to give out more bad crops and natural disasters for the player. I noticed that at expert the Hojo army was growing as fast as my army even though I had taken three of his six provinces, and I had two troop producing forts to his one.


I finally won the Uesugi campaign on expert and did it in 18 game years. (my best time yet.) I know that this is one of the easier clans to win with but it still seemed fast.
I think that the higher difficulty levels force you to be more aggressive because the A.I. also is, and this in turn makes you finish in less game time. Sorry to babble on so, but I hope this helps.

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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

[This message has been edited by Forward Observer (edited 05-06-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Forward Observer (edited 05-06-2001).]

[Alastair]

Whew! How long (in real, everyday time) did it take you to do all this?

[Forward Observer]

Quote Originally posted by Alastair:
Whew! How long (in real, everyday time) did it take you to do all this?[/QUOTE]

I'm guessing here, but the last game took took one Friday session of maybe 5 hrs and
one all day Saturday of maybe 7hrs, so a total of about 12 hrs. including bathroom and meal breaks. Previous games probably took 20 to 25 hours over 3 to 4 very late evenings.

I am sure this is true for many gamers, but when I play I get so involved that normal human functions like food and sleep become irrelevant. I have started gaming on a Friday night, and have been surprised to look up and see the sun coming up on Saturday. I am an old poker player, and I have played so many long overnight sessions over 35 years or so that I guess I have conditioned myself to not require much sleep anyway. Believe me, I have spent some miserable days at work following these sessions, so I don't do it any more. Getting too old I guess.



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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.