Seeking difficulty advice

[jairgraham]

Move up? Change settings?

Right now I'm running 10-20 point leads and occasional early ambition victories on 'The Strong' without too much overall difficulty, but I don't have the ability to win a war vs the AI. I can stalemate pretty easily. I can have minor victories taking one to two of their border cities when I need to open up the map in the early expansion phase. But it seems no matter how I commit to the war it pretty much just chugs on as a waste from then on.

I mean, I did win a 'wipe out this nation' ambition when my score was 50 and the AI I was sent to conquer languished with something like 8 points on a small island, but I'm not sure that counts.

I feel I'm almost always better off taking an expensive peace deal than spending the resources and orders to wage a war.

Moving up gives raiders at the edge of the map, which I don't like but probably just means keeping a few more troops around the edge of the map. It gives less starting gold which doesn't mean much, and more starting discontent which matters but I can manage.

It's hard to wage a war without thinking 'man that's a lot of worker acitons/buildings I'm giving up just to maybe get an edge city' or something like that. And even with a 'Champions' City pumping out a pike or mace or something every other turn and a bunch of other cities supplementing it it's hard to even get to 'similar' power with AI nations. The AI sure will throw their entire economy into a war indefinitely and it's tricky to cope with.

Even so winning is a foregone conclusion for me at this level. Does semi-peaceful (by Old World standards) rapid expansion still work on higher levels or do I need to commit to some 'kill everyone' games to get the hang of it before I difficulty up?

[Siontific]

In my opinion, while the game is highly customizable and players can play whatever settings suit their fancy; I don't think the game really kicks into gear until Glorious or higher.

There's so many minor aspects of the game that add up to make it easier or harder, and one thing that I personally just consider standard is being allocated only 1 city site. Addiionally, Glorious is the first level where tribes are Strong, and all tribal units gain an extra fatigue. A.I aggression switches from normal to aggressive. The economy is tighter.

Glorious is still pretty easy for me at this point, but if any players are playing on lower difficulty settings and are looking to challenge themselves, then the recommendation I'd make would be aim to win on Glorious.

The tribes will be a re-learning experience, though. They just aren't a real threat at "normal" strength if you know what you're doing. At strong or higher, they're a big part of the challenge.

Unlike Civilization, where Deity is supposed to be this impossihard setting (the latest versions didn't really pull this off though cause the A.I. isn't great) - I feel like while The Great is certainly challenging - in a lot of ways, to me, it feels like the way the game is "supposed" to be played; you really are a new nation in an Old World on that level, and it's often quite a challenge to win.

Magnificent is usually my happy middleground.

[jairgraham]

Does the extra city site go to barbs on Glorious? Like one open three barbs instead of two open two barbs?

Yes tribes being a step up sounds like that's where the challenge starts to really ramp up. I'll probably try 'Noble' next and see how it goes.

Civ is sadly not fun to me on Deity. Like you said it's supposed to be impposihard, but hte reality is that it's just a setting where you abuse cheese to win and every civ has a LOT of different types of cheese in it. Most strategies are out and so many suboptimal things Civ offers are just not playable anymore. it's not really hard per se, it's just, I dunno, formulaic?

Talking about 4x difficulty. Imperialism 2's 'Nigh on Impossible' difficulty generally forces you to interact with various aspects of the game that are more complex and a lot of players tended to ignore on lower settings. It gave the feeling that you had to be opportunistic and take what you can get and make any deal you can to win, and it's a good feeling. It makes you engage with the game more, not less. I feel like you're telling me that Old World is more like that, where the harder you get the more you have to understand the game and play it to its fullest.

I don't think I understand the games warfare meta well enough yet, but it sounds like 'The Noble' isn't going to push that boundary too hard and I have until 'Glorious' to really start to understand it.

Thanks for your input.

[jotwebe]

One thing that often bothers me on high difficulties is when the game is balanced for a lower difficulty, and the higher difficulties are arrived at by piling up bonuses for the AI. Often it breaks some mechanics that work on lower difficulties but aren't feasible on higher ones.

While OW does a bit of the modifier piling, most of it is mechanics coming into their own at high difficulties. For example, the hunter family founding bonus feels underwhelming at low difficulties, since it's just a bunch of resources. On high difficulties however, you have very little resources to start with, and the founding bonus is a significant help. Like Feigro, I feel that OW is at it's best when played at really high difficulties - unlike Civ, you don't have to play a distorted mess just to get a challenge once you know the game well.

That said, the best difficulty is probably one where you can win, but barely - depending on if you're in the mood for min-maxing and challenge or roleplay and relaxation.

[mk11]

Playing on Fragile, Competitive. No development boost, small advantage, raging.

Typical start gets rapidly to three cities. At that point stall as waves of raiders and occasional rebels. About turn 40 or so get enough extra units to hold and send an invasion force to target a tribal camp. At that point start snowballing into taking camps.

About turn 100 or so have expanded over all tribes. Discontent is under control. All families are friendly. Can then plan to win the game. Some of the AIs will be stronger and some will be ahead in research.

I prefer to disable Double and Ambition victories as it is too easy to win those more or less by accident.

My advice is to change to custom. First, just set barbarians to raging and AI to competitive. After that start increasing own difficulty and not touching the AI options.

[tiamats4esgares]

I recently started playing on the difficulty where I have only 1 free city site and tribes are stronger. And woah...tribes are not messing around. I declared war with both near me for legitimacy, and they are sending units from far away to defend their city sites (even seemingly helping each other fight me off).

On the difficulty below (the strong?) I get bored towards end game. As of now though, this new difficulty I'm doing isn't boring.

[Siontific]

Originally posted by jotwebe:

One thing that often bothers me on high difficulties is when the game is balanced for a lower difficulty, and the higher difficulties are arrived at by piling up bonuses for the AI. Often it breaks some mechanics that work on lower difficulties but aren't feasible on higher ones.

This is one reason why I think the higher difficulty in OW shines. I can't be certain, and I think the balance is definitely holistic either way.

But it honestly feels as if OW did this the other way around; i think the game is designed and balanced around "The Great" and then the lower difficulties are tuned to to scale to provide a breadth of difficulties for the average player since most 4x players actually tend to play on medium-to-low difficulties.

Originally posted by tiamats4esgares:

I recently started playing on the difficulty where I have only 1 free city site and tribes are stronger. And woah...tribes are not messing around.

I think adjusting to tribal strength is the biggest challenge of moving up in difficulty, by far. In fact, almost exclusively the main reason i think Magnificent is a good sweet spot is because tribes aren't Raging, lol.

Raging tribes on The Great can be a nightmare. I'd rather be sandwiched between two or 3 nations that have 4+ cities each then get stuck in the middle of the hinterland along a coastline filled with tribes.

[jotwebe]

Originally posted by Feigro:

But it honestly feels as if OW did this the other way around; i think the game is designed and balanced around "The Great" and then the lower difficulties are tuned to to scale to provide a breadth of difficulties for the average player since most 4x players actually tend to play on medium-to-low difficulties.

Exactly! If not "The Great," then "The Glorious" or "The Magnificent." And I think doing it this way makes for a better game overall than doing it the normal way. Or at least a game with better longevity. If the balance is a bit off on lower difficulties, as long as it's in decent shape, it's fine. As people get familiar enough to notice, they also climb the difficulties and notice how the balance shifts as they do that.

[jairgraham]

Originally posted by mk11:

My advice is to change to custom. First, just set barbarians to raging and AI to competitive. After that start increasing own difficulty and not touching the AI options.

Going up to Noble and setting AI to competitive would be a good start.

I agree with the difficulty discussion overall. I just won a double points victory abruptly. I think stronger tribes would be the biggest step up overall, as tribes are a speed-bump at the level I was playing at and not a major obstacle.

AI unit production really does boggle my mind though. I fought Carthage in my last game, they had three cities, ever. I had a major center producing units every two turns, and six supporting cities producing units four to eight turns, and more cities maintaining my economy. I still had no way to keep up with the raw quantity of units the AI can spam. It appears they do nothing other than build units and ships from every city, and somehow have the resources to maintain them all, and they produce units very quickly on top of that.

[Bennster]

I came to this discussion with exactly this question/query.... Is there some way of balancing the AI unit spam? With superior units, more cities I just can't possibly keep up with the volume of units coming out of an AI faction. There are literally 2 more appearing every turn just swamping me - and the AI only has 3 cities.

[jotwebe]

They shouldn't be able to keep that up forever. They're using laws that allow rush-buying units, and those buys get more expensive every time they do it. Especially with only three cities - how many do you have? If you're substantially stronger, you should have a significant edge in numbers and orders, enough to kill their reinforcements as they come. Don't you have spies in their cities telling you what they are doing?

[Siontific]

This is where tactics matter in a war, as well; as long as you're killing more than you're losing. The computer will eventually lose steam; it's bound by the same mechanics that impact the player - they're just firing on all cylinders; especially compared to a new player since new players tend not to use all of the tools in the toolkit.

Either because they don't know that they're there or because of a trepidation.

For example, I smash that rush button all the time in my games for all manner of things depending on the circumstances or situations; settlers, units, specialists - whatever.

I do this because discontent spirals rarely ever happen to me and if they do they aren't game ending, just hiccups.

A newer players is probably more likely to feel overwhelmed by hostile situations; large raids, rebels spawning, a surprise war declaration... all three of these happening at once can feel like the game is over.

In reality, you just keep pushing through it.

I've been able to conquer entire nations on Glorious or higher using a base of only 3 cities - so out-producing/out killing the A.I. is certainly possible once you get a handle on the game.

Unfortunately it can be hard to paint a whole picture as who how to achieve this state, since it's a lot of little things that pile up; it's general game knowledge that helps.

Late game laws can play a huge role though; Carthage is an income powerhouses so if it happens to have holy war and a religion they can translate gold to units for a very long time with the right map setup.

[krabdr]

In the mid to late game, only wage war if you have siege engines. They can make it very difficult for the AI to keep up. Massed siege weapons are hard to beat. If you're going to declare, only wage war if the AI is "weaker" or "very weak". The latter is a cake walk.

Be sure to have some cavalry and ranged units to pick off stragglers. A 5-chain cavalry rout is a thing to behold! (and there's an achievement for it, too). But more typical is them shredding your forces with slings and bows, so you need to be able kill those cheap ranged units and that means cavalry and ranged. My cavalry tend to die pretty quickly.

Build fortifications. Some people think these are a waste of resources, but the enemy cannot gain the benefits when the fort is in YOUR territory (and conversely you can nothing in forts in their terrirotry). Fortify your units in the forts ahead of time for extra damage/defense bonuses.

If the AI is "similar" or "stronger", it's gonna be a slog. Attrition may not be your friend, but make it work for you on your terrain. Build forts and make them come to you. If you overreach and go to them, they'll annihilate your forces by rushing troops up that are in Fog of War. That means you have to scout! Scout with your scouts. Even better if they can weaken an adjacent city's defenses, but you need to know if they can rush reinforcements up quickly or not.

You need to assess the situation after 5 turns. If you've inflicted more losses, you'll get a more favorable peace settlement. If they've moved down a notch in force and you're still in good shape, consider going on the offensive! Move up reinforcemnts to the front, fortify and prep for the second DOW. It's coming...

[jairgraham]

Hmm, it's like how Slavery is the best civic in Civ 4 but compounded because citizens are worth less and there are more forms of rush buying overall.

I think the disconnect for me, and possibly some others, is that the AI is completely willing to throw the game over a war. Development be damned all in no mater the cost or loss.

I've noticed when I 'stalemate' an AI, or take a minor victory, that AI never returns to competitiveness afterwards compared to the peaceful AIs. If they used to be #1 or #2 they'll fall down the list and not rise again.

So far on Noble I've had a clean 15 point victory and a somewhat near victory trying a different strategy that is frankly sub-par (polytheism shrine spam, among other things) and a fair bit of bad luck and bad decisions on my part.

Invasion from the edge of the map is kind of a yawn, I'm almost disappointed by it. Because of the invasion events I think it makes the game a little easier. Extra options to buy mercs or getting training bonuses are more than worth dealing with a few easy kills. And the kills themselves help with cogonyms sometimes.

Are developing level wonders basically not accessible to the player once you hit the higher levels? I can see early religions being more a gamble as well. I guess you can play Egypt if you really have to have one. The whole AI starts developed thing is probably the only part of difficulty I don't like.

[HB]

Originally posted by jairgraham:

Move up? Change settings?

To make it harder on yourself, you could look at tribes, see the raging level?, it can go further, so pick the easiest level, which i assume you never use, and go next level from raging, ie they raid further and quicker and produce more units, esp if your using a bigger distance between city locations.

[jairgraham]

Originally posted by HB:

Originally posted by jairgraham:

Move up? Change settings?

To make it harder on yourself, you could look at tribes, see the raging level?, it can go further, so pick the easiest level, which i assume you never use, and go next level from raging, ie they raid further and quicker and produce more units, esp if your using a bigger distance between city locations.

I suppose they spawn quite a lot more units? Tribal alliances would be stronger. Does it slow down the major AI's?

I suppose I'm at a spot where I want to play the war game, while this game more than any other 4x I've played disincentives warfare vs other majors. The orders cost for war is too high. The build time cost for war is too high. The AI will absolutely wreck themselves over a war and it's not really that fun to play into. My last game kind of highlighted to me what bugs me. My own expansion went smoothly and quickly and I outpaced the AI's like crazy, and that indicates 'play on a higher level', but I got dragged into a war with a much smaller major power due to a tribal alliance.

Ok fine, I beat up their troops on the boarder and truce out. Now that power is languishing for the rest of the game at the bottom of the list, and an even triggers another war with them or a major cost to me. Should be easy right?

Nah they have nothing points wise but they have a massive fleet and army anyway, and it's a grind to grind it down and then try to get another truce, and going for cities is just irritating because contrary to what people have said here I have never seen an AI peter out of war capacity even when the war drags on for 50 years, it's unit spam all day everyday with everything they have even if they have a trivial amount of cities.