'The Good' is a Noob Trap

[Aluminum Elite Master]

'AI plays on this level'



*scrolls down through a wall of text*



'AI Development: Fledgling... nations starts with an average of 2 cities and 2 techs'



GG WP, the 'normal' difficulty is the equivalent of Emperor, not Prince. Found this out the hard way when I just fired up a new game on 'The Good' for the first time after having played on 'The Just' earlier, and somehow got a Roman Carpet O' Doom on turn 30 something when I DoW'ed them to take a city site they forward settled, and I promptly got stomped.

Honestly, it's my own fault for not reading the entire wall of text for the difficulty level, but please please please get rid of the 'AI plays on this level' tag, or explain it out more. That tag being like that at the top of the wall of text lulls noobs like me into thinking it's a totally level playing field to pick The Good... and it isn't at all. Two *cities* on turn 1 is a huge boost, and that's the *average* number, meaning in theory someone could have more than that. On turn 1. On 'Normal'.

And sure enough, went back to check end-game graph/stats, and Rome had 4 victory points on the first turn... so probably more than two cities even.


And again, I do blame myself for making an assumption, but come on, that's poor wording and/or bad indication there. That's *asking* players to read that and jump to a conclusion that is hilariously not even close to true... the CPU had 4 vp on turn 1!!!

[The Doctor]

I've got several games that have a similar spread of game set-up settings so that the player can tailor the game to play the way they want to. I come from the old school of gamers who think that the lowest setting is the easieast too so I fell into this 'trap' when I started out too. I blamed myself for my error because I didn't take the time to read the options properly and just assumed, which works out fine more often than not but other times, not so well. I don't agree with your comment that the player is required to read a wall of text, more on which below, but you are correct about one setting in particular.

The crucual options are not that numerous with the most significant items like AI Aggression - Tribes etc visible just below the player difficulty. The AI development game setting is not as clear as it could be and it's set by Default to 'Fledgeling' which would perhaps be better set at 'None'. It gives the AI two cities at the start which I have found not to be particularly bad at all.

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by Aluminum Elite Master:

Nations starts with an average of 2 cities and 2 techs'

Anybody who has play Civ for thousands of hours has been trained at the start to go right into Advanced Settings. Simply because games like these can take 2-3 days to complete for the average player. It's not like playing a match for 20-30 minutes in other strategy games. Or 2-3 minutes if you play mobile strategy games.

You're right, though. That setting is brutal. It really shouldn't be on default, spotting the enemy 3 cities at the start. Even I got caught by it when I first played this game.

It's easy to spot, though. I immediately suspected the AI was cheating beyond the pale, so I double checked the settings and sure enough.

Old World is not an easy game to learn. You certainly don't want to learn it while gifting the AI three cities on your first turn.

[Mohawk_Solver]

I'll look into giving difficulty levels better descriptions.

In general though, it's not very accurate to compare OW difficutly levels to Civ. The game doesn't play like Civ, the mechanics and strategies are very different. You compared this to Emperor difficulty, I assume because that's when the AI starts with an extra Settler in Civ6... but Civ6 AI also relies on discounts heavily. On Emperor it has an extra Settler (and on Immortal it will always attack you with its starting units) but the AI also gets big discounts on stuff, which the OW AI doesn't.

The starting premise is different OW, and therefore the strategy also. In OW, you start out weaker than other nations and have to catch up. This means avoiding war early on is a priority. Declaring war around turn 30 would be a high-level move as the AI will normally have better forces than you do at that point (the upcoming patch will clarify the strength relation). This is very different from Civ, where your early priority is to take out the closest neighbor.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Originally posted by Mohawk_Solver:

I'll look into giving difficulty levels better descriptions.

In general though, it's not very accurate to compare OW difficutly levels to Civ. The game doesn't play like Civ, the mechanics and strategies are very different. You compared this to Emperor difficulty, I assume because that's when the AI starts with an extra Settler in Civ6... but Civ6 AI also relies on discounts heavily. On Emperor it has an extra Settler (and on Immortal it will always attack you with its starting units) but the AI also gets big discounts on stuff, which the OW AI doesn't.

The starting premise is different OW, and therefore the strategy also. In OW, you start out weaker than other nations and have to catch up. This means avoiding war early on is a priority. Declaring war around turn 30 would be a high-level move as the AI will normally have better forces than you do at that point (the upcoming patch will clarify the strength relation). This is very different from Civ, where your early priority is to take out the closest neighbor.

I agree it's not really fair to compare the difficulties to Civ equivalent, and I did openly admit that it's largely on me. There is a lot of text to sift through, but it's true that it does, further down, explain that yeah, the CPU might be getting tossed an extra city or two in a few spots.

What I would recommend is just two things:

#1 - On the set-up screen, bring the AI settings up to the top of the difficulty descriptions... AI Advantage and AI Development are both much more important than the starting resources I think. Starting resources do have knock-on, snowball effects, but that listing for resources isn't quite as vital as knowing my CPU opponent(s) may start with additional cities.

#2 - Rebalance those lower difficulty levels. I actually was doing exactly what was suggested... I went Persia and spammed slingers from turn 1 to clear barbarians and secure city sites. But as I was clearing a site fairly close to just my second city, Rome came over with three units, cleared the last barb and secured the site. I continued spamming slingers with a few warriors as well, and launched an attack on turn 30-ish or so only to face what I estimate was 3 chariots, 6 slingers, and 8 warriors. The chariots luck out and get 'rout' twice in a row one turn, and that was the game. And I mean, even in Civ a lot of us spammed archers with a warrior or two and took cities right away... OW isn't completely different from Civ in that. But I had no choice here really... high level move or not, there was a huge desert with no city sites to my east, and I was going to only have 3 cities for a long time if I didn't fight back. Maybe it was an unlucky seed on the map, which Civ has as well, but this was a doomed situation I think if I let Rome take that site and hold it.



What is different is that in OW, the third difficulty level... the *third* is already granting bonus cities. And I think that is translating into a ton of variation... if a CPU with 2 bonus cities is on the other side of the map, I can find a way to win, even without being a min-max player and being fairly new. But if that CPU, as likely happened here, is the one closest to me, then I get forward and settled and it really does become GG WP if I can't take that site back.

The issue is wild variation of difficulty within the same level setting. And it comes down to *who* got bonus cities and *where* they started on the map. The third diff. setting should not be one where I am fighting merely to survive IMO... there are an ample # of tougher difficulty levels already included, above The Good, that offer that tough of a challenge if I really want it. Which I applaud the game for including... on Civ, most settings were not that hard if you played earlier entries in the series. But in OW, I feel like even if I played 100 games of this, there still probably are times where the map seed and CPU bonuses are going to really ramp up difficulty given the fact that on the third difficulty level, the CPU already is sometimes getting two bonus cities (or even three).

[Mohawk_Solver]

I just added descriptions to each difficulty mode, let's see if that helps for starters. There's also been some general work on difficulty levels that hits in the next patch.

[MightyMouse]

Originally posted by Mohawk_Solver:

I just added descriptions to each difficulty mode, let's see if that helps for starters. There's also been some general work on difficulty levels that hits in the next patch.

Wow, thank you

[The Doctor]

Originally posted by Aluminum Elite Master:

#2 - Rebalance those lower difficulty levels. I actually was doing exactly what was suggested... I went Persia and spammed slingers from turn 1 to clear barbarians and secure city sites. But as I was clearing a site fairly close to just my second city, Rome came over with three units, cleared the last barb and secured the site. I continued spamming slingers with a few warriors as well, and launched an attack on turn 30-ish or so only to face what I estimate was 3 chariots, 6 slingers, and 8 warriors. The chariots luck out and get 'rout' twice in a row one turn, and that was the game. And I mean, even in Civ a lot of us spammed archers with a warrior or two and took cities right away... OW isn't completely different from Civ in that. But I had no choice here really... high level move or not, there was a huge desert with no city sites to my east, and I was going to only have 3 cities for a long time if I didn't fight back. Maybe it was an unlucky seed on the map, which Civ has as well, but this was a doomed situation I think if I let Rome take that site and hold it.

You need to be wary of AIs snatching a barbarian tribe site from you. It's easily avoidable once you know it can happen and you'll end up doing it to the AI many, many times in the future because, unlike you, they can't plan for that eventuality.

No, Old World really is NOT like Civ in this respect at all. Going up against another AI in the early game is taking a really BIG risk. As you noticed, the AI knows how to use its units, especially the chariots, to great effect as well as using promotions. So war against another AI faction is not the cake-walk that it is in Civ. Bum-rushing your closest AI in the early game is not the go-to strategy that it is in Civ, especially when that faction is Rome because they have Training coming out of their ears.

And sometimes, you just know that a map is a bust and it's time to start a fresh game. This happens in every single 4X game I've ever played as well. I will try and go for a win as long as I think it's a viable proposition but as soon as it becomes apparent that it's not possible, I start a new game either on a new map or restart it with more knowledge of the game to help me start out better.

[linas.warrior]

Aren't "The Strong" is the medium difficulty in this game?

And what does it even mean "AI plays at this level"?

[Mohawk_Solver]

The AI's economy is always at The Good, which means stuff like 10 free orders per turn and +9 Discontent per turn.

[attiladafun]

Originally posted by Mohawk_Solver:

The AI's economy is always at The Good, which means stuff like 10 free orders per turn and +9 Discontent per turn.

God I hate how people say this game has good ai. The ai cheats like crazy and any game where you slowly outpace enemies with a head start every game is a poorly designed game.

[linas.warrior]

Originally posted by Mohawk_Solver:

The AI's economy is always at The Good, which means stuff like 10 free orders per turn and +9 Discontent per turn.

So what do AI get at higher difficulties?

[Mohawk_Solver]

Originally posted by BigYeezy:

Originally posted by Mohawk_Solver:

The AI's economy is always at The Good, which means stuff like 10 free orders per turn and +9 Discontent per turn.

God I hate how people say this game has good ai. The ai cheats like crazy and any game where you slowly outpace enemies with a head start every game is a poorly designed game.

That's not a head start, that's the same stuff as you get (AI development is a head start though). Free orders aren't free compared to you, they're just free. You're also getting free orders from the start because you haven't built anything. The AI isn't cheating.

[Mohawk_Solver]

Originally posted by linas.warrior:

Originally posted by Mohawk_Solver:

The AI's economy is always at The Good, which means stuff like 10 free orders per turn and +9 Discontent per turn.

So what do AI get at higher difficulties?

There are no lower or higher difficulties, for the AI it's always The Good difficulty. Difficulty level is a per-playing setting, not a game setting, and the AI always has the same one.

[linas.warrior]

I still don't understand what does higher difficulty do, then.
The only difference I see is that you start with less resources and there are so called raiders from "distant lands".

Sorry if I sound dumb :)

[Mohawk_Solver]

Higher difficulty also changes how aggressive the AI is and how often tribes raid you.

We just published a patch on the Test branch, it will be on the main build next week - difficulty levels have been rebalanced and clarified there, so you can take a look in-game and it should hopefully be clearer after these changes.