return of rome difficulty

[i like beans]

I just played 2 matches of the return of rome mode on standard difficulty and both time was rushed by over 100 chariot archers from one ai and 100 swords men and catapults from the other i think the difficulty might have a bug.

[CJM]

I've read a few posts suggesting that in lieu of gates, AoE1 experts build mazes, adjacent to towers and/or archers, which whittle down enemy numbers. It may be that it takes 100 units to have a chance at surviving an early maze.

AoE1:DE seems to be similar in difficulty. I got lucky with geography on the match I played on that version of the game. Had a zero combat round when I tried Return of Rome, and got Agile as a Sparrow.

[i like beans]

Originally posted by CJM:

I've read a few posts suggesting that in lieu of gates, AoE1 experts build mazes, adjacent to towers and/or archers, which whittle down enemy numbers. It may be that it takes 100 units to have a chance at surviving an early maze.

AoE1:DE seems to be similar in difficulty. I got lucky with geography on the match I played on that version of the game. Had a zero combat round when I tried Return of Rome, and got Agile as a Sparrow.

yeah im used to moderate on aoe 2 where its a fight but nothing like the aoe 1 waves of soldiers and 20 some enemy towncenters

[Astachoth]

Originally posted by CJM:

I've read a few posts suggesting that in lieu of gates, AoE1 experts build mazes, adjacent to towers and/or archers, which whittle down enemy numbers. It may be that it takes 100 units to have a chance at surviving an early maze.

AoE1:DE seems to be similar in difficulty. I got lucky with geography on the match I played on that version of the game. Had a zero combat round when I tried Return of Rome, and got Agile as a Sparrow.

That is cheating. I have seen that done in the Stronghold series. You are fooling the computer into illogically sending it's units through a maze instead of directly attacking the city, so that you can kill them with arrows as they approach.

[Krosis Priest]

Originally posted by Astachoth:

Originally posted by CJM:

I've read a few posts suggesting that in lieu of gates, AoE1 experts build mazes, adjacent to towers and/or archers, which whittle down enemy numbers. It may be that it takes 100 units to have a chance at surviving an early maze.

AoE1:DE seems to be similar in difficulty. I got lucky with geography on the match I played on that version of the game. Had a zero combat round when I tried Return of Rome, and got Agile as a Sparrow.

That is cheating. I have seen that done in the Stronghold series. You are fooling the computer into illogically sending it's units through a maze instead of directly attacking the city, so that you can kill them with arrows as they approach.

Yep, I have brought up Stronghold many times as an example of a 20-year old game which has some of the same dumb issues AoE2:DE AI STILL HAS... while also having ideas and features AoE2:DE still hasn't implemented.

(and RoR amazingly made things even worse instead of fixing literally anything.)

[Die Verwirrung]

Difficulty is definitely very unbiased. Standard is like nothing - only villagers by the enemy, no progress, you can easily go 2nd civ. and attack him with even one scout and win the game. On moderate he is rushing you like hell. In AoE2 I usually play hard, here I can not get a grip with moderate and standard is no choice, so the balancing is out of control here. How can the AI have that many resources to rush with the best units?

[i like beans]

Originally posted by Krosis:

Originally posted by Astachoth:

That is cheating. I have seen that done in the Stronghold series. You are fooling the computer into illogically sending it's units through a maze instead of directly attacking the city, so that you can kill them with arrows as they approach.

Yep, I have brought up Stronghold many times as an example of a 20-year old game which has some of the same dumb issues AoE2:DE AI STILL HAS... while also having ideas and features AoE2:DE still hasn't implemented.

(and RoR amazingly made things even worse instead of fixing literally anything.)

Yeah stronghold hd also has balancing issues unresolved. The difference between aoe 2 de and ror is giagantic though.

[Skrilax]

I loose with romans against egyptians in moderate difficulty. AI build an army of chariots archers and elephants archers. I could have won because I won the first battle, but I was'nt fast enough to continue the offensive...

I think a good strategy could be to invade ground little by little by building towers as you go.

[i like beans]

Originally posted by Schrilax:

I loose with romans against egyptians in moderate difficulty. AI build an army of chariots archers and elephants archers. I could have won because I won the first battle, but I was'nt fast enough to continue the offensive...

I think a good strategy could be to invade ground little by little by building towers as you go.

yeah they always spam cavalry archers i dont see any explanation than its gotta be a bug because it doesnt fit how hard they go on standard difficulty its basically impossible to win i was able to beat 1 out of the two that teamed up on me

[Welderfeatures]

Completely agree. Was playing 2x2 as Rome against the AI, and while I managed to raid the first AI into submission pretty early, the other AI boomed like MAD. They had easily over two hundred units just waiting in their base, elephants, chariot archers, horse archers, priests.

I had to cheese it with dozens of heliopolises (helipolae?) behind a big block of legionaries. and even then it took two or three attempts, they'd just got too much stuff, and even getting torn apart by my artillery, they couldn't be stopped. Lost well over a hundred fully upgraded Legionaries, dozens of helio's. Eventually, the units they had in their base were all dead, and the only stuff they had was a constant, steady stream of units from the half dozen of each production structures they had.

Not to mention, they were sending villagers everywhere. Every time I knocked down a TC, seemed like another one would spring up, and I'd be back to square one.

End of the game, there were over 1200 casualties from that one AI player.

This is on standard difficulty.

It's -insane-. If the AI is allowed to get into Bronze age, they just go berserk. Hundreds and hundreds of units, dozens of TCs. My AI ally was completely useless. Built maybe a few dozen units, and then just sat in their base while I was grinding away. Much as I love this game's aesthetic, and appreciate the nostalgia from back when, I'm kind of remembering why I never played against more than one AI opponent at a time.

I can't really be making demands of devs, but I feel a rebalance should be in order. Maybe it's because I'm used to DE AI, but the RoR AI just feels completely insane.

TLDR: 2x2, me as Romans. Rushed first AI ez. Attacked 2nd AI, after pausing a little to sort my own eco. Had to fight through nearly a thousand enemy units, with helipolis spam my only tactic. Standard difficulty is no joke. DO NOT LET THE AI AGE UP. EVER.

inb4 git gud

[Quillithe]

Yeah, it's annoying because they spam so many town centers and gather so many resources if you give them a higher population cap that it's a massive war of attrition.

If you blow up part of their town, they'll just rebuild it.

Killing villagers doesn't really do much of anything with how quickly they recruit more with the massive economy.

Killing their units slows them down a little, but you need to be sure to keep your stream of units coming because they'll recruit them as fast as they die.

This all feels a bit aggressive for standard. Sure, on higher difficulties you should need to rush the AI I guess, but standard is kinda a 'new player' difficulty and it's kinda hard to deal with AI micro capabilities as a casual player.]

Even worse is that they tend to spam chariot archers which seem to be lacking in particularly great counters when massed - your own chariot archers, maybe elephant archers, maybe siege weapons. And that's it.

[Welderfeatures]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Yeah, it's annoying because they spam so many town centers and gather so many resources if you give them a higher population cap that it's a massive war of attrition.

If you blow up part of their town, they'll just rebuild it.

Killing villagers doesn't really do much of anything with how quickly they recruit more with the massive economy.

Killing their units slows them down a little, but you need to be sure to keep your stream of units coming because they'll recruit them as fast as they die.

This all feels a bit aggressive for standard. Sure, on higher difficulties you should need to rush the AI I guess, but standard is kinda a 'new player' difficulty and it's kinda hard to deal with AI micro capabilities as a casual player.]

Even worse is that they tend to spam chariot archers which seem to be lacking in particularly great counters when massed - your own chariot archers, maybe elephant archers, maybe siege weapons. And that's it.

Totally agree with the chariot archer comment. I'd say the same goes for Horse Archers/Elite, they're fast, powerful, have good range, and a high rate of fire. Anything short of Choson Legionaries isn't getting anywhere close to them, and if you haven't got a similar unit to counter, they're -really- difficult to stop.

I don't want to grouse too much, but I feel like copying the original balance over was not a great idea. The game was never very well balanced in the first instance, and it -really- shows now, particularly with the new AI.

Then again, I don't design games, so I've got no idea how much work such an overhaul would need.

[ImperiusDamian]

Horse and chariot archers are definitely OP. They always were in vanilla AoE and RoR though. Egyptians always had a distinct advantage over pretty much everyone except Babylonians who could wall in and outrange with siege but then they got destroyed by Egyptian priests!

Shame the new DLC is so crash prone. I was really enjoying getting stuck into a good challenging game. I took out Babylon and Yamato as Egypt and was moving in on Palmyra on an 8 player Mediterranean when BOOM, crash to desktop without warning.

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by Schrilax:

I loose with romans against egyptians in moderate difficulty. AI build an army of chariots archers and elephants archers. I could have won because I won the first battle, but I was'nt fast enough to continue the offensive...

I think a good strategy could be to invade ground little by little by building towers as you go.

Roman Towers are really bad, though.
Romans mostly work around Legion + Helepolis, with some Centurions on the back, to keep the sniping Cavalry away.

[ImperiusDamian]

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

Originally posted by Schrilax:

I loose with romans against egyptians in moderate difficulty. AI build an army of chariots archers and elephants archers. I could have won because I won the first battle, but I was'nt fast enough to continue the offensive...

I think a good strategy could be to invade ground little by little by building towers as you go.

Roman Towers are really bad, though.
Romans mostly work around Legion + Helepolis, with some Centurions on the back, to keep the sniping Cavalry away.

Pretty much anybody loses vs Egyptians TBH. Those chariots are just too strong especially w/priests behind them. What's left of your army ends up becoming THEIR army.