The game is just TOO easy!!!!

[Sir Moody]

Actually i think a lot of jags OP is because of his faction choice - Prussia

My first campaign was Great Britain and its an economical nightmare starting with colonies as you have far more work to set yourself up and you need to maintain a strong navy presence

Prussia is so easy its amazing - It took me 20 turns to get GB ready for war in the Americas and Europe - in 20 Turns Prussia had absorbed Sweeden and Poland and had a good chunk of Austria - not to mention most of the Small German states

Prussia is a small but heavily military nation (its line infantry is second only to GB's) with its total focus on Europe and its only major oponents are Sweeden and Austria (poland is too weak) - Sweeden is easy to crush if you ally with the danes and then move in fast - austria is usually busy with the ottomans and cant defend itself when the inevitable push comes (ive left them alive as a barrier between me and the ottomans for now)

My Navy consists of a single brig I built to move some troops to finland and all my opponents either have no Navy to worry about (Poland, Austria) or have no time to use their Navy effectivly (Sweeden)

Prussia is by far the best starting location with the second best troops - incredible easy (and fun )

[Bob the Insane]

Speaking for my first N/N GB campaign, the Native American factions certainly have no trouble with agressively and continously attacking both your resources and cities. Even if you garrison a border city they will sneak past to attack the interior.

I have lost settlements this way.

I do wonder if the AI strategic strength caluations are overrating the civilain militia automatically generated in large cities, discouraging the attacks...

[Eusebius86]

Has anyone tried sitting still for 10 years to give the AI a chance to do something? Sure, I could have taken over Poland as Prussia in 5 turns early on, but not anymore. Its 1718 and Poland is big that they are about to annhilate Austria. Russia is pushing back Sweden. I really think that your bordering neighbors need a chance to tech up, build up, and get alliances. Right now, its GB, UP, and Austria, verse Russia and Poland. I decided to seize the moment, and made a land grab against both Austria and Poland, so everyone's at war with me right now. Needless to say, I'm having severe economic difficulties right now...

[Strategy]

It's a personal opinion of course but I never found CIV IV any comparison to TW or even CIV III or CIVII even (which were both far superior in my view.) Yes though, I found civ far to easy, thus the expansion packs I found boring and useless and stopped after I bought the second one.

Question: Since, according to your own words (quoted from above: "..maybe impossible is bad"), you have not played CivIV at the higher difficulty levels, how can you comment on Civ IV being "easy" to play?

That you find CivIV boring and useless is fair enough; tastes differ. But if you haven't played the game on impossible level - and won easily - I fail to see how you can argue CivIV being easy.

In any case, if you enjoy the game on M/M, why not go and enjoy it and leave us grumpy old (or younger) men who are unsatisfied with the AI to our grumpiness.

[JAG]

Prussia was my second campaign, unfortunately I did a Great Britain campaign first which was, to be honest, even easier. The fact NO reinforcements come from the European nations to the other parts of the world, and you can leave Britain, literally, completely defenceless - I had NO military units in any place for my WHOLE game, except for when building armies to ship out. I took over the whole of the American continent, helpfully aided by the easy mission which gives you all the thirteen colonies territories... and I had all of India bar 3 territories, by 1730 ish.. Sigh. The fact I am now 4 turns into a Spain game and am about to take Amsterdam, having already taken Morocco and crushed the Cherokee.. Its just.. sad :(

If you find it hard, you are not being aggressive enough, at the start you can take territories easy, just because your stacks are not amazingly huge, it doesnt mean you can't use them.

I think some people here have got it spot on, Gal Civ 2 is probably the hardest Strat game I have ever played - if you haven't tried it, GO NOW! It has an amazing range of gameplay and AI, and the AI is super, duper smart - I don't know how they do it, but CA need to get a leaf out of their book. We need more of a range of difficulties or more options or something, so those who find hard too hard can and have the chance to get a level between medium and hard and those who find VH too easy can crank it up to get a real, significant challenge. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to do.

My first campaign was Great Britain and its an economical nightmare starting with colonies as you have far more work to set yourself up and you need to maintain a strong navy presence

By the way to get round that is to only build an army in America - it doesn't even need to be big, transporting your troops from Britain over is the best bet, it is what I did - and only build quality, big ships. Due to the good admirals the British have, and the crap ships the rest buy - except Spain - you can quite effectively control the seas with a roving single big stack, then building up another when you can.... Something I have seen which makes the game prety laughable is that when your trade ships are actually trading from the coast of Brazil or wherever, the AI will loot your routes rather than destroy the ship and take the trading post... Meaning that just get your ships there, asap and you will have them for the whole game.... I had pretty much all the foreign ports my whole game - if you need to go to war, destroy them all, then get peace do it - the revenue speaks for itself. Anyway enough of me giving my secrets away, back to the point - the game is too damn easy.

[ironanvil1]

TW should go the same wasy as Galactic Civilisations 2. That game has so many difficulty settings it's hard to remember them all, I think it has ten or more. They range from pathetically easy all the way up to hellishly difficult.

GalCiv 2 is a good way ti go, in that the higher difficulties actually made the AI smarter rather than just adding additional resources to a moron.

It also has the various choices of what you want included in each game.

I don't want an AI that's necessarily more aggressive, just one that will surprise you on occasion with sneakiness rather than just spamming elite stacks. Stuff like cutting you off from your allies, building up it's own coalition and isolating you diplomatically before invading, that kind of thing.

[zarkis]

There are several factors which are contributing to the overall weak campaign AI performance.

(1) Inability to launch naval invasions or transport troops between hotspots.
(2) Wasting their units in endless small scale raids.
(3) AI countries are locked up in endless wars between each other without any progress, which drains their economy. That may be the reason why many factions have a worse financial rating later in the game then in the beginning (exeptions are Spain, England, Holland and France)
(4) Insufficient recruiting behavior, which seems random and not controlled by any plan.
(5) Sometimes strange attack moves, where the AI attacks a stronger force with a much weaker force.
(6) Inability to retreat on the campaign map when facing impossible odds (a feature even RTW had).

So far, I have no idication that the campaign AI was improved or worked on. Maybe they run out of time, the whole stuff is unfinished, and we will get a better AI opponent with patches. Maybe CA failed to acknowledge that this area needs some serious work. However, from the interviews they did, I had the impression, that they were working not only on the battle AI (which is not without flaws but quite improved over RTW/MTW2 in my opinion) but were designing a new campaign AI too. For example they talked about the campaign AI telling the battle AI what to do in certain situations and implementing a more goal based system overall. So far, I can't see any of that. It's a pity because ETW has many neat new design features, great graphics and the battles are quite fun.

[Rufus]

I think the person who brought up the Prestige campaign raises a good point. If you're going for the Prestige victory in addition to your normal victory conditions, you have to research a lot of the technologies and philosophies that might give rise to a revolution within your own home territory. This doesn't necessarily negate the problems others have identified, but it could make the grand campaign harder.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Heh, at least ETW got JAG to post.

Now, what to do if ETW is too easy but Galciv is boring because it doesn't have tactical battles...

[AussieGiant]

I'll say it again.

Please play the Prestige game on VH/VH...get back to me with your thoughts at 1799...

...and that should not be for a few days.

While I expect the AI to be tweaked and made far more challenging now that CA have 20 000 play testers, JAG's comments are telling. Especially about trade war behaviour.

All this should be patchable which is a good thing.

[Fisherking]

Ok! There is an AI problem. Here is where I see the problem stemming from.

It is resource management.

AI resource management and some sort of threat analyses should be put in place, so the AI doesn’t spam units in isolated areas and redistributes its forces based on thread or intentions, by the most expedient means. This will be by sea in most cases, of course.

It should examine resources (units & fleets) to see if any may be used to aid in its allies’ wars.

They should manage their territories and decide on a military posture toward their neighbors in each theater.

If that posture changes due to war or peace, then the AI should redistribute its forces to match its perceived threats.

How territory is acquired is not important. By diplomacy or invasion, by land or sea.

Does anyone see it as some other problem?

[zarkis]

I'll say it again.

Please play the Prestige game on VH/VH...get back to me with your thoughts at 1799...

...and that should not be for a few days.

While I expect the AI to be tweaked and made far more challenging now that CA have 20 000 play testers, JAG's comments are telling. Especially about trade war behaviour.

All this should be patchable which is a good thing.

I played Maratha on VH/VH. I reached my long campaign goals at about 1738. At the same time I was already leading the prestige scale (because I downed most of the the British Navy blocking my trade lanes). Sorry, but going for a prestige game is no solution. The solution is CA finishes coding the campaign AI. It's obvious that there a features missing and the whole thing isn't properly balanced yet.

[Beskar]

1) The AI doesn't go for your cities and doesn't defend it's own
2) The AI will always take your peace offer.

I wish I had this problems, however, it's always been the opposite.

The AI never takes my peace request unless I give them something like 100,000 with it to them.

In my game, AI goes straight for my cities, even my own protectorates stab me in the back the moment they can, especially Courtland taking Riga. Even small nations such as Venice attacked me with a full stack within 2nd turn of the game as Austria.

In the game, there are no clear advantage unless you are lucky enough to be -
a) very high on research
b) outnumber the enemy
c) managed to get into a good defending position
d) confuse the AI system in cities.

All of this is on medium/medium setting, even.

[Fisherking]

Some are having difficulties and some are not. I know that I have seen previous titles behave differently at times.

More to the matter at hand. There must be some underlying cause if there is a problem.

Is it what I have supposed or is it something else?

Lets try to look at what may be the problem rather than its symptoms.

What do you think?

[seireikhaan]

Hmm...

I've had a bit of both deals. Playing as the Dutch, I had little trouble rounding the caribbean and Canada, swiping territories with ease from the Spaniards and French. Ironically, after taking most of French Canada, the Huron backstabbed me as I was trying to ferry troops over to Newfoundland, and seized Montreal with a near full stack. Now, granted, it wasn't terribly difficult to get my army back, defend Quebec, and take the offensive to retake Montreal, but that's more due to having more troops and more advanced capabilities(about 1730's or so).

In europe, I had a slightly bizarre expierience...

France built a neat little starfort near our border, but left it empty. When war broke out again, I thought, "hey, why not, I'll seize it!" So I marched right in with a full stack and took it. The Frnech promptly sallied from nearby Paris with about a 4/5 stack, and bashed themselves against the defences. I utterly crushed the army, though I did take some moderately significant losses. The French army, however, was GONE... and Paris was right there... and only citizens to aid the defense(granted, there was a TON of them)

I have had some slight monetary issues, it should be noted. I do not have naval superiority, and the AI has taken proper advantage, raiding my trade routes with enthusiasm.

[sassbarman]

What do you mean by 'exploiting'? As the OP suggests, it is frustrating to have to intentionally play dumb in order to get a challenge (which is what was required in RTW/M2TW), actually doing that is not really a challenge is it? It is not like there is some great glitch that can be exploited in an unrealistic way.

I agree that a diverse game where you need to use trade, diplomacy, research AND war is ideal, but if the game CAN be beaten using war alone, then the other features become meaningless. This was the case with say the Pope and merchants in M2TW. I at first used merchants and made lots of priests go and convert the heathen so I'd have high piety priests to control the vatican. Pretty quickly though it was clear that this was completely unneccesary as steamrolling the map was so simple to do.

To me (and I think many others) the fun of a game is in trying to simply beat it by whatever means neccessary. It should be sufficiently challenging such that even a veteran cannot beat it easily at the first try. Take CivIV for example, it took weeks for the community to collectively compose a playing style that could beat the hardest level, and for many players doing so was never possible, no matter how hard they tried.

With the TW series (from RTW on) you could either play to win, and do so easily and boringly using very few of the features, or you could 'role play', i.e. intentionally play sub-optimally to 'give the AI a chance'. The problem with that approach is that when the going gets tough you can also bend your own rules a bit and stay on top, there is never the seat of your pants thrills of *really* having your back against the wall.

I still don't have ETW (and probably won't for a year or so for various reasons unrelated to the quality of the game) but if ETW doesn't prove to be an interesting challenge maybe I won't bother getting it (or wait till it is a bargain bin game that will run on my future computer with ease!).

To summarise, I love the idea of all the complex features in ETW like trade, genuine diplomacy, research etc, but I want to HAVE to use them to succeed, rather than them being ignorable micro-management and flavour unneccesary to the path of victory.

BANG ON!! very well said!

[Devastatin Dave]

JAG, I want to give birth to your children.

[Namarie22]

Actually, I'm having a harder time on Medium/Medium than on VH/VH as Sweden... :o

Alot more action, on VH/VH, nothing much happened, but on Medium/Medium, everyone and their grandmother is invading me.. wth?

I were going to go for a nice and easy game, focus on research.. guess that's out the window.. :D

[JAG]

JAG, I want to give birth to your children.

Love you Dave!

[Sir Beane]

I have devised a method to add increased challenge into the game! It doesn't even require modding.

Play the game blindfolded.

First one to do this and take the map wins .

[AussieGiant]

I played Maratha on VH/VH. I reached my long campaign goals at about 1738. At the same time I was already leading the prestige scale (because I downed most of the the British Navy blocking my trade lanes). Sorry, but going for a prestige game is no solution. The solution is CA finishes coding the campaign AI. It's obvious that there a features missing and the whole thing isn't properly balanced yet.

Well that is interesting to hear, and a little disappointing. Do you think that continuing the game would have lead to any large scale nations providing a viable opposition to you?

[Susanna]

I have devised a method to add increased challenge into the game! It doesn't even require modding.

Play the game blindfolded.

First one to do this and take the map wins .

*gasp* A Mod spamming threads!

You should be ashamed! Ashamed, I say!

Sir Beane, Knight of Spamshire indeed!

[AussieGiant]

Sir Beane is becoming a little spamaholic don't you think?

[Sir Beane]

*gasp* A Mod spamming threads!

You should be ashamed! Ashamed, I say!

Sir Beane, Knight of Spamshire indeed!

A mod cannot possibly post spam. Anything we post is relevant and informative, because it's a mod posting it .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I seem to be getting a reputation for 'spam' posts, but I swear I only do it to keep discussion vibrant and active. Sorry guys .

I wonder how long it will be before the community develops a set of 'house rules' to make ETW more challenging? Probably not long given the complaints about difficulty.

[Meneldil]

The game is just TOO easy!!!!

To be honest, set some house rules, and the game stop to be easy. Early game blitz are not a good way to enjoy a TW game.
Blitzing in MTW made the game easy, blitzing in RTW made the game easy, blitzing in M2TW made the game easy. I'm not surprised ETW is easy if you blitz the game.
Even mods such as EB are easy if you blitz early on. Heck, even Europa Universalis II/III turns easy if you blitz with some factions.

So yeah, as I've said, set some house rules, try to play in a historical way, and the game will be much more enjoyable. I'm not asking you to pretend to suck or what not, but things like not going at war with everybody without casus belli for example, does improve the game.
I'm still a bit baffled CA did not even try to make conquering huge chunks of lands harder. The era saw little territorial changes in Europe, yet you can conquer western europe in 5 turns in game.

I don't say the AI isn't bad. I haven't played enough to give a real opinion on it, and to be honest, I doubt it's vastly better than RTW or M2TW AI's. But still, playing agressively has always made the TW games retardingly easy. No news here.

[Sir Beane]

To be honest, set some house rules, and the game stop to be easy. Early game blitz are not a good way to enjoy a TW game.
Blitzing in MTW made the game easy, blitzing in RTW made the game easy, blitzing in M2TW made the game easy. I'm not surprised ETW is easy if you blitz the game.
Even mods such as EB are easy if you blitz early on. Heck, even Europa Universalis II/III turns easy if you blitz with some factions.

So yeah, as I've said, set some house rules, try to play in a historical way, and the game will be much more enjoyable. I'm not asking you to pretend to suck or what not, but things like not going at war with everybody without casus belli for example, does improve the game.
I'm still a bit baffled CA did not even try to make conquering huge chunks of lands harder. The era saw little territorial changes in Europe, yet you can conquer western europe in 5 turns in game.

I don't say the AI isn't bad. I haven't played enough to give a real opinion on it, and to be honest, I doubt it's vastly better than RTW or M2TW AI's. But still, playing agressively has always made the TW games retardingly easy. No news here.

Some of the previous quirks of the game that made blitzing easy have been removed from Empire. Off the top of my head:

1. It is much harder to hold a region
2. The AI are more prepared to form coalitions to stop the player.
3. No access to another province without military access or declaring war.
4. No loot for sacking a town.
5. Emergent and re-emergent factions make things more difficult
6. No rebel towns to take early on.

It's still a very effective tactic though.

[Susanna]

I don't say the AI isn't bad. I haven't played enough to give a real opinion on it, and to be honest, I doubt it's vastly better than RTW or M2TW AI's. But still, playing agressively has always made the TW games retardingly easy. No news here.

I kind of agree.

To be honest, personally I hardly play aggressive as I am much to busy building every improvement in my towns and keeping my little serfs happy.
But as soon as I've read some game or faction guide on 'How to conquer the world in 15 turns' I find it very hard not to follow on the advice, knowing its much more effective to spam units than spend the money on city walls.
Somewhat diminishes my game enjoyment :(

I am not sure what the best solution would be. Most probably the modders will come up with something clever.

Susanna/Calapine

[Susanna]

1. It is much harder to hold a region
2. The AI are more prepared to form coalitions to stop the player.
3. No access to another province without military access or declaring war.
4. No loot for sacking a town.
5. Emergent and re-emergent factions make things more difficult
6. No rebel towns to take early on.

It's still a very effective tactic though.

7. Citizens (armed mob) rally to defend the town. Got suprised by that on my first ever town attack.

[Dogfish]

We could make the house rules based upon the current limitations of the AI:

1. No naval transport. You have to get there by land. All recruitment occurs on the landmass where the unit is intended to be stationed. This means as Britain you would have to trade for a province in continental Europe to raise armies on the mainland. After typing that out and re-reading it I think this would be pretty ridiculous, but then again so is the AI in it's current incarnation with regards to this issue. Onward to two.

2. You must have defensive armies on station in all of your faction's provinces.

3. Somebody help me out here. What's number three?

[Ardri]

3. Somebody help me out here. What's number three?

3. Limit yourself to a specific number of trade resources and let the computer have some instead of monopolizing the worlds trade lanes. Just a thought.