How Difficult is this Game?

[iamdanthemanstan]

I've played around 4 hours of the demo, and I was just wondering how difficult veteran players would say the game is? So far with less than 100 people it's pretty easy. Not much seems to go wrong. Is that just the early game? If it does get more difficult what does the challenge come from. I don't mean this as a criticism I'm just trying to understand exactly what sort of game this is.

For example sometimes this game gets compared to RImWorld where the difficulty comes from getting attacked all the time by the AI. Sometimes this game is compared to Factorio where the difficulty comes from the complexity of bases and the later attacks.

[Blueberry Muffins!]

Somewhere around 100 people you start attracting the notice of "rebels" aka thugs. You can get unlucky earlier, mouse over the sword icon at the top left to get the executive summary of the risk, there's more detail behind that, and when you hit 100 citizens you can start training. In the interest of safety you should heed the warning it gives you when you get there. I make bows and makeshift weapons ahead of time, 10 archers 10 melee is a big spend in a hamlet like that but not close to what the bandits will take if they attack.

That's when the game begins. You've had the first taste of the balancing act, but the demands get more varied and the economy gets massive and intricate.

You have to trade for everything you can't produce, and near as I can tell the world economy is real, the prices float on the in-game economy's supply and demand, no pre-set base prices so there's economic jockeying going on too. Here's the list of items produced and traded in the economy you're trying to find+make a place in[songsofsyx.com]. Specialization and collaboration is going to be the winning strategy, self-sufficiency is for the second-tier alliances. Vive la différence!

Just saw a video today of a 13'000 soldier vs 14'000 soldier battle. Yes it's modeled down to the individual soldiers. No the graphics are not pretty. The SoS dev said he was trying to fill in what he saw as weaknesses in a few different genres, Pharoah, one other I forget and *the Total War series* just to give you an idea of the ambition here. I'm so far from being able to contemplate fielding an army even a tenth that size it's not funny. I don't have any sense of how good the game's battle command AI is, I hope he's aiming at parity with something like Rise of Nations, where at the higher difficulties it'll try to create and exploit good matchups on the field, and run away from anything starting to look like it might get pyrrhic, but again I don't know if it is that good or has any hope of ever getting that good. The battle I saw, it looked like a pushover. But the opportunity's sure there.

[ZirzoR]

I started this game complete buttnaked, no tutorial, no youtubes, no wiki, I still managed to hit 200 pop and have a decent settlement with some soldiers for defense. (I have less then 5% raids now, I started at 25%)

The hurdles was just figuring out some mechanics and systems in the game. (Like finding where all the information is for some things, where to press dials and buttons to manage the city, which just takes some exploring and maybe pausing the game sometimes)

I wouldn't say the game is difficult right now at around 200 pop, but It's probably a bunch harder once you actually want to take territory and make more then a single city at the same time, but it also probably comes with experience and getting comfortable with the game.

[TexanPiper]

One thing I've noticed the more I play this game is that you reach a roadblock with every playthrough. When you start a new settlement, you play and improve until you reach a new roadblock. For me, I tend to reach between 1500 - 2500 population before I reach a major road block. This could be anything. It could be that you've invested too much into too many industries to experience anymore growth unless you make major changes. It could be that you didn't leave enough space for your city to expand properly. It could be that you get raided and lose half your citizens, and then lose another portion due to the new levels of unhappiness. With all this being said, I'd say that the game certainly gets more and more challenging as the game years tick by and your population/ economy grow. But you face different problems and find new solutions constantly. There's also numerous ways to play the game since you can play as 5 different factions. Idk the best way to comment on your post, but if you like the game, I'd keep playing. If you reach 100 or even 200 population really easy, then plan for the 500 population mark in advance. Or keep growing until you get stumped. Personally, I tend to breeze into the 400 - 500 pop mark and then I start to struggle a bit. But that's only because I've played a fair bit and my main goal every game is to have a huge population, manage a huge army outside my settlement, and have a booming economy. I have yet to accomplish all three of those goals simultaneously, so I'm still learning and trying new things. Anyways, I hope this helps!

[A boy named Sue]

Originally posted by iamdanthemanstan:

I've played around 4 hours of the demo, and I was just wondering how difficult veteran players would say the game is? So far with less than 100 people it's pretty easy. Not much seems to go wrong. Is that just the early game? If it does get more difficult what does the challenge come from. I don't mean this as a criticism I'm just trying to understand exactly what sort of game this is.

For example sometimes this game gets compared to RImWorld where the difficulty comes from getting attacked all the time by the AI. Sometimes this game is compared to Factorio where the difficulty comes from the complexity of bases and the later attacks.

Difficult and easy.

This is no Rimworld - Difficult.
It's new - Easy, to a point.

[A boy named Sue]

Originally posted by A boy named Sue:

Originally posted by iamdanthemanstan:

I've played around 4 hours of the demo, and I was just wondering how difficult veteran players would say the game is? So far with less than 100 people it's pretty easy. Not much seems to go wrong. Is that just the early game? If it does get more difficult what does the challenge come from. I don't mean this as a criticism I'm just trying to understand exactly what sort of game this is.

For example sometimes this game gets compared to RImWorld where the difficulty comes from getting attacked all the time by the AI. Sometimes this game is compared to Factorio where the difficulty comes from the complexity of bases and the later attacks.

Difficult and easy.

This is no Rimworld - Difficult.
It's new - Easy, to a point.

Breaking population thresholds is how you progress.

[ZirzoR]

The game goes in stages.

Numbers Indicate Population.

10-100: Easy.

100-250: Easy.

250-500: Raids start to happen for real and you might lose sometimes, but still easy if you know what you're doing.

500-1000: Starting to feel that food production need and you need to fix it to get higher, at this stage it gets abit harder.

1000-2000: At this point you need to start making people happy, or they will leave in droves, game starts to become a management game more then anything else, problem solving at this point get's abit repetetive.

2000+: Smooth sailing from here, unless you have a war with another region nearby who can attack you with a huge army.

There is pretty much no goal with this game, and there is no win condition, after 1500+ the game get's quite stale imo, I usually restart and try a new race or try a new tactic or starting location at this point.

The problem with the game right now is that the game becomes easier and easier the more you play it.

1: Education stacking + Research multiplier + Nobility + Upgrades + Tools + Race makes the resource gathering a joke.

2: The more people you get, the bigger the buildings you can make, the easier it gets to get everything.

3: The more titles you unlock the faster you get to end-game.

4: When you unlock taxes and tributes the game becomes too easy. (You can sustain multiple resources that you dont even make yourself with just taxing)

5: Raids are too easy aswell, they're barely geared at all, and when they are, you're well prepared to deal with them, its just free resources and manpower when a raid occurs, you take all their stuff and you make them all into slaves, free workforce for nothin' or free entertainment as they fight for their lives in the pits.