Campaign difficulty Hard or Normal?

[Myshkin]

To be or not to be?

I found the campaign is too much of a blitzkrieg, if played on hard. It also means that you need to know the map in advance and have some metagaming knowledge to do well.

I think normal is a bit more reasonable and meets my RP expectations, while I have the time to explore around without worrying I spend valuable time.

At the same time, I just wish normal was a bit more of challenge sometimes.

What do you think? Do you think I am missing a lot by turning it down to normal?

[Lars]

Personal opinion, I don't get much out of playing the campaigns as difficult as I can manage, I found myself decently challenged on normal and enjoyed the stories and exploring.

scenarios for the cut throat difficult stuff for me :)

[Grakor]

I always found that, either way, the campaign gets easier the longer you go through it. Once you can field a hero doom stack and rush the enemy, you've pretty much won every map without even having to build units outside of city garrisons. The last map of every campaign was pretty much me sniping the leader and throne city of every enemy.

It's one of those weird things with the campaign. The funny thing is, I honestly had more fun doing that since I'm more of an RPG gamer over a strategy one.

I guess the point is, the effect of the relative difficulty will probably depend on where in the campaign you are. Age of Wonders has never been a "turtle and explore" kind of game though, and you'll need to tone down the difficulty and limit yourself if you want it to be that and still pose any kind of challenge.

[Myshkin]

Well, 3 doom stacks and capital rush is definitely not fun for me.... but if you like it, it's all good.

[Janthis]

I'm playing on normal and getting destroyed... the AI just seems to have an enormous advantage in terms of cities, armies and so on... The very first mission, against the orc that betrays you, I'm running around with level 1 units and the first enemy stack I encounter is full of level 2s and 3s... and there are more armies behind it. It's not even that the computer is "smart" or something... it's that it starts with such a ridiculous advantage that there's almost nothing you can do. I am almost regretting buying this game, because this is just cheap and lazy design.

[Gloweye]

Originally posted by ionutz1280:

I'm playing on normal and getting destroyed... the AI just seems to have an enormous advantage in terms of cities, armies and so on... The very first mission, against the orc that betrays you, I'm running around with level 1 units and the first enemy stack I encounter is full of level 2s and 3s... and there are more armies behind it. It's not even that the computer is "smart" or something... it's that it starts with such a ridiculous advantage that there's almost nothing you can do. I am almost regretting buying this game, because this is just cheap and lazy design.

then play on easy....don't expect to just start the game and be able to handle anything else.

[Lars]

Much as I love AoW III the campaigns DO feel cheesy gameplay-wise. You do need to know the map layouts from trying and restarting on some of the maps, and the later missions are won by doomstack rushing with your heroes that are high level and equipped in shinies from the previous missions. I appreciate the lore, the stories told and such, but the gameplay has every right to be complained a bit about.

Also I think most players even those completely new to a TBS reasonably expects to be able to beat the very first campaign mission on normal difficulty. (@ionutz1280 still git gud tho, it gets a lot more tricky than this first mission later on in the campaign).

Anyhoosle, this is said a lot but it really isn't without reason we often recommend new players start with custom maps instead of going right into the story missions on this game. They definitely can be easily beat once you're intimately familiar with the game and how to combat without losing all your armies.

[Janthis]

Also I think most players even those completely new to a TBS reasonably expects to be able to beat the very first campaign mission on normal difficulty. (@ionutz1280 still git gud tho, it gets a lot more tricky than this first mission later on in the campaign).

Then it's a bit backwards compared to other games, where the campaign served as an introduction to the game, and afterwards you'd go on to play skirmish/multiplayer. I'm not sure what they were thinking making the campaigns so frustratingly hard, but it doesn't matter anymore. I actually got so angry I deleted the game from my Steam library and won't buy any other AoW product ever again. So... feel free to ignore this. :)

[Lars]

Did you randomly delete the other topic? So annoying when people do that. Here's what I was posting there, its kinda related to this one as well:

'Can you think of a single strategy game where its campaign's challenges doesn't spin around pitting the player against much stronger forces?

You should have tried some custom maps first, they are fair and if you care about strategy games at all, you would have immediately appreciated that the AI is actually playing the same game as you by the same rules (only getting some slight bonuses on higher difficulties), and is actually quite competent at playing the game.

Unlike much bigger franchises such as oh I don't know Civ VI where the AI doesn't look like it understands anything at all.'

[Lars]

Originally posted by ionutz1280:

Then it's a bit backwards compared to other games, where the campaign served as an introduction to the game, and afterwards you'd go on to play skirmish/multiplayer. I'm not sure what they were thinking making the campaigns so frustratingly hard, but it doesn't matter anymore. I actually got so angry I deleted the game from my Steam library and won't buy any other AoW product ever again. So... feel free to ignore this. :)

And that is why it is repeated ad nauseum for new players to play some custom maps (they really are great) if they find they can't beat the campaigns.

[Janthis]

Originally posted by Lars:

Originally posted by ionutz1280:

Then it's a bit backwards compared to other games, where the campaign served as an introduction to the game, and afterwards you'd go on to play skirmish/multiplayer. I'm not sure what they were thinking making the campaigns so frustratingly hard, but it doesn't matter anymore. I actually got so angry I deleted the game from my Steam library and won't buy any other AoW product ever again. So... feel free to ignore this. :)

And that is why it is repeated ad nauseum for new players to play some custom maps (they really are great) if they find they can't beat the campaigns.

Then the game shouldn't recommend that you play the Elven Court campaign, which is what it tells you as soon as you reach the main menu.

[Lars]

You're not wrong.

[Gloweye]

Yes, the game shouldn't. And that's how the campaign started out.

However, they improved the AI, made it smarter. Combined with the starting advantage it has in the campaigns, that made the campaigns pretty hard. Searching for any topic here about the campaigns would have shown you that it's not really reccomended except for the tutorial level.

Also, I seriously don't understand why you'd presume that without any experience you should be able to handle it at normal. Why the hell do you think the easy difficulty exists, then ?

And I disagree. I am an experienced player, and I can handle new campaign levels on Hard without any issue or restart.

[Sam Hotte]

Originally posted by ionutz1280:

Originally posted by Lars:

And that is why it is repeated ad nauseum for new players to play some custom maps (they really are great) if they find they can't beat the campaigns.

Then the game shouldn't recommend that you play the Elven Court campaign, which is what it tells you as soon as you reach the main menu.

But the elven campaign is very easy and a good tutorial to the game, IMO - if you play at easy difficulty.
If you're new to the game, that's the way to go, I'd say.

[Janthis]

Originally posted by Sam Hotte:

Originally posted by ionutz1280:

Then the game shouldn't recommend that you play the Elven Court campaign, which is what it tells you as soon as you reach the main menu.

But the elven campaign is very easy and a good tutorial to the game, IMO - if you play at easy difficulty.
If you're new to the game, that's the way to go, I'd say.

I played on "normal" figuring it would be a decent challenge since I'd played some strategy games in the past. Around turn 13 my scouts found the enemy's main army, featuring tier II and III units plus a cannon. He also had a couple of other army stacks also with tier II and III units, and about 5 towns. Meanwhile I barely had enough money to build some tier II units. On top of that, the AI also seems able to see the whole map and always knows exactly where your troops are and which cities are undefended, and will always try to capture them. At that point I realized I was experiencing more frustration than fun, and just uninstalled. If the goal of this campaign was to discourage me from continuing, well, mission accomplished I'd say.

[Sam Hotte]

So, you got a challenge you were looking for and discovered, that the challenge is higher than expected.
I wouuld either tone down the challenge (= set lower difficulty setting for starter) or trying to adopt to the challenge.

But, yeah, everyone is different, if you don't like the campaigns for whjatever reasons, I'd recommend giving the random maps a try, before throwing the game in the trash altogether (because that's the heart of the SP of the game, IMO, not the camapigns)