Battles are Broken in 3K

[Ligon Flarius]

I Know the campaign difficulty is quite well tuned, sometimes even too hard in this game. But regardless, BATTLE difficulty is TOO DAMN easy!

I wanna know what the community thinks what the reasons are, but I don't think It's just the AI. Shogun had a clearly inferior battle AI, and yet, if an army 25% stronger than mine attacks, I'll fear what the battle results might be.

In 3K, The same 25% disadvantage is a certain victory for me (if both sides have at least medium to big armies). I'm sure everyone else will agree on this one, won't they?

The reason I believe this game's - battle - challenge is non-existent is the battle length. And this has been true in any TW game. Every time someone comes up with a brilliant overhaul that increase battles by 10 minutes, the challenge goes away. And that is becuase with more time, the player gain enormous advantages over the AI. With only 4 medium infantry, you can hold off until your cav and generals wipe the archers (which are never guarded in 3k) and flank, winning the day. All that is in Very Hard, of course.

Attila and Shogun 2 might have erred a bit on the other side. Infantry doesn't hold for long, thus forcing you to play chess, needing to choose which move your cavalry will do next, and there won't be time to help every foot soldier. in both games Generals are squishy, which isn't fun. But it's still miles better than what they did in 3K.

oh, and yes... shorter battle mods are nowhere to be seen, perhaps because the community doesn't see that as the source of the challenge problem.

[Nero]

The AI can actually keep up quite well with humans up to decent players. But at some point humans get simply better than what the AI can handle. Still it puts up a decent fight.

Yes it often does not guard its archers but it tries to hammer and anvil you with its own horses and its horses will go after yours to prevent them from hunting down archers...

I've had a few pretty embarrassing defeats against the AI in 3K.

Once you enter late game with good units on both sides, the battles tend to go longer.

[똑똑한]

Two main issues, army templates and cavalry.

AI armies start decent, but generally don't tend to upgrade to better units as they unlock them. Their generals are often not as high leveled (and players tend to horde legendaries + legendary items anyway) and their units usually don't have as much experience as player armies which tend to survive more or less the entire campaign.

AI in total war has always struggled to deal with cav, and that's way more impactful with 3k. In most other total wars, even 'victorious' cav charges tend to deplete the cav unit pretty quickly, and cav units can't survive in melee for very long + melt to most ranged fire. Cav units in 3k are available cheaper, in higher quantities and have TONS of massive buffs. Thanks to higher model counts and the existence of the ranged block stat, they can also pretty much ignore most ranged fire. 3K is a game that basically amplifies every advantage cavalry has while also removing most of their campaign and combat level weaknesses.

[󠀡󠀡Neodymetrick]

Originally posted by 똑똑한:

Two main issues, army templates and cavalry.

AI armies start decent, but generally don't tend to upgrade to better units as they unlock them. Their generals are often not as high leveled (and players tend to horde legendaries + legendary items anyway) and their units usually don't have as much experience as player armies which tend to survive more or less the entire campaign.

AI in total war has always struggled to deal with cav, and that's way more impactful with 3k. In most other total wars, even 'victorious' cav charges tend to deplete the cav unit pretty quickly, and cav units can't survive in melee for very long + melt to most ranged fire. Cav units in 3k are available cheaper, in higher quantities and have TONS of massive buffs. Thanks to higher model counts and the existence of the ranged block stat, they can also pretty much ignore most ranged fire. 3K is a game that basically amplifies every advantage cavalry has while also removing most of their campaign and combat level weaknesses.

+ + and +
The only thing I find very confusing because it's too much to keep in mind is your friendship and the opposite of that with all the other factions around. Because one will love you letting their friends go the others will hate it and so on, which tends to end up in a true TOTAL WAR NEIN NEIN. Besides Fire Archery is still very good at making horsemen cry and especially making them flee, even tho fire has been nerfed.