Thoughts and problems with Difficulty

[Greater Cultist]

I have been playing this game quite a bit recently, and I have tried out most of the difficulties (easy - ultra hard) and I have come to the conclusion that difficulty isn't implemented as well as it could be.

Problem 1: The IMF shares.
At the difficulty of Hard and Ultra Hard, the AI hoards so much money that it is nearly impossible to buy IMF shares. At the endgame on Ultra Hard I find myself having around 20-200 million euros in my pocket that I can use to buy stuff. However, the 3-4 most succesful AI have up to 1-50 billion, meaning that they can buy the share lightyears before I can. This results in victory through the IMF being impossible on Hard and Ultra Hard difficulty

Problem 2: more problems with the accumulation of money
Once again, on Hard and Ultra hard difficulty the AI accumulates tons of money. So much money, that it is impossible to bankrupt the top 3-5 banks on those difficulties due to the limited 300 turns you have. This disables victory through bankrupting the other banks as well (as far as I have tried). Furtherly, this means that the AI entirely decides which nation wins a war, as they can invest millions and billions more dollars than you could ever produce in weapons or accumulate in trade.

Problem 3: It barely affects the actual difficulty of winning a game.
Even though you start out with 5000 less gold on Ultra hard, and Science/The Federal Reserve are the only ways to win, winning does not feel any more difficult than on medium difficulty. Besides the fact that the A.I gets massive bonusses, they don't get in your way all too much. They cannot interfere with your investments, they do not interfere in politics and they can't interfere directly with your bank. Therefore, the only thing the A.I bonusses do is make it impossible for them to be bankrupted, make wars one-sided in the late-game (it all depends on who the biggest 3 banks decide to support, you don't have enough money to make a difference) and make the IMF nearly impossible to obtain. You can win a Science or FRS victory just as easy as on Medium difficulty.

How could this be fixed? Well, I have a few suggestions, but I'm not sure whether they would work.

Suggestion 1: make the difficulty directly effect the profits.
This suggestion is probably the easiest one to implement. If someone wants to play on Ultra Hard, then all the costs are increased. Taxes, managers salaries, investment costs, lower interest rates on loans, higher costs for the FRS and Science and the like. This would most likely only require a few numbers to be changed.

Suggestion 2: Let the A.I get in your way.
This suggestion is a lot more difficult to implement. This suggestion entails letting the A.I influence politics, letting the player take loans from the A.I, letting the A.I use fear to directly hurt each other and the player. This would allows the A.I to use all of the money it hoards on the higher difficulty to make the game more difficult for the player.

[hamstersprod]

Originally posted by Greater Cultist:

I have been playing this game quite a bit recently, and I have tried out most of the difficulties (easy - ultra hard) and I have come to the conclusion that difficulty isn't implemented as well as it could be.

Problem 1: The IMF shares.
At the difficulty of Hard and Ultra Hard, the AI hoards so much money that it is nearly impossible to buy IMF shares. At the endgame on Ultra Hard I find myself having around 20-200 million euros in my pocket that I can use to buy stuff. However, the 3-4 most succesful AI have up to 1-50 billion, meaning that they can buy the share lightyears before I can. This results in victory through the IMF being impossible on Hard and Ultra Hard difficulty

Problem 2: more problems with the accumulation of money
Once again, on Hard and Ultra hard difficulty the AI accumulates tons of money. So much money, that it is impossible to bankrupt the top 3-5 banks on those difficulties due to the limited 300 turns you have. This disables victory through bankrupting the other banks as well (as far as I have tried). Furtherly, this means that the AI entirely decides which nation wins a war, as they can invest millions and billions more dollars than you could ever produce in weapons or accumulate in trade.

Problem 3: It barely affects the actual difficulty of winning a game.
Even though you start out with 5000 less gold on Ultra hard, and Science/The Federal Reserve are the only ways to win, winning does not feel any more difficult than on medium difficulty. Besides the fact that the A.I gets massive bonusses, they don't get in your way all too much. They cannot interfere with your investments, they do not interfere in politics and they can't interfere directly with your bank. Therefore, the only thing the A.I bonusses do is make it impossible for them to be bankrupted, make wars one-sided in the late-game (it all depends on who the biggest 3 banks decide to support, you don't have enough money to make a difference) and make the IMF nearly impossible to obtain. You can win a Science or FRS victory just as easy as on Medium difficulty.
How could this be fixed? Well, I have a few suggestions, but I'm not sure whether they would work.
Suggestion 1: make the difficulty directly effect the profits.
This suggestion is probably the easiest one to implement. If someone wants to play on Ultra Hard, then all the costs are increased. Taxes, managers salaries, investment costs, lower interest rates on loans, higher costs for the FRS and Science and the like. This would most likely only require a few numbers to be changed.
Suggestion 2: Let the A.I get in your way.
This suggestion is a lot more difficult to implement. This suggestion entails letting the A.I influence politics, letting the player take loans from the A.I, letting the A.I use fear to directly hurt each other and the player. This would allows the A.I to use all of the money it hoards on the higher difficulty to make the game more difficult for the player.

There is a very big problem with complexity and AI. Other players write that the game is too simple. That players can bankrupt competitors at the Ultra Complicated level and ask to make it even stronger. How to please everyone? I definitely can't make AI easier if other players complain that it is too weak.
If we talk about writing AI from scratch, now we can not do it. I understand that there are things that could be improved.. So we decided to leave the price at $12. Although games with such functionality and this level of design cost about $ 18, We decided that it was better to leave the price lower. The main thing is that the players were satisfied

[Gift]

Originally posted by hamstersprod:

Originally posted by Greater Cultist:

I have been playing this game quite a bit recently, and I have tried out most of the difficulties (easy - ultra hard) and I have come to the conclusion that difficulty isn't implemented as well as it could be.

Problem 1: The IMF shares.
At the difficulty of Hard and Ultra Hard, the AI hoards so much money that it is nearly impossible to buy IMF shares. At the endgame on Ultra Hard I find myself having around 20-200 million euros in my pocket that I can use to buy stuff. However, the 3-4 most succesful AI have up to 1-50 billion, meaning that they can buy the share lightyears before I can. This results in victory through the IMF being impossible on Hard and Ultra Hard difficulty

Problem 2: more problems with the accumulation of money
Once again, on Hard and Ultra hard difficulty the AI accumulates tons of money. So much money, that it is impossible to bankrupt the top 3-5 banks on those difficulties due to the limited 300 turns you have. This disables victory through bankrupting the other banks as well (as far as I have tried). Furtherly, this means that the AI entirely decides which nation wins a war, as they can invest millions and billions more dollars than you could ever produce in weapons or accumulate in trade.

Problem 3: It barely affects the actual difficulty of winning a game.
Even though you start out with 5000 less gold on Ultra hard, and Science/The Federal Reserve are the only ways to win, winning does not feel any more difficult than on medium difficulty. Besides the fact that the A.I gets massive bonusses, they don't get in your way all too much. They cannot interfere with your investments, they do not interfere in politics and they can't interfere directly with your bank. Therefore, the only thing the A.I bonusses do is make it impossible for them to be bankrupted, make wars one-sided in the late-game (it all depends on who the biggest 3 banks decide to support, you don't have enough money to make a difference) and make the IMF nearly impossible to obtain. You can win a Science or FRS victory just as easy as on Medium difficulty.
How could this be fixed? Well, I have a few suggestions, but I'm not sure whether they would work.
Suggestion 1: make the difficulty directly effect the profits.
This suggestion is probably the easiest one to implement. If someone wants to play on Ultra Hard, then all the costs are increased. Taxes, managers salaries, investment costs, lower interest rates on loans, higher costs for the FRS and Science and the like. This would most likely only require a few numbers to be changed.
Suggestion 2: Let the A.I get in your way.
This suggestion is a lot more difficult to implement. This suggestion entails letting the A.I influence politics, letting the player take loans from the A.I, letting the A.I use fear to directly hurt each other and the player. This would allows the A.I to use all of the money it hoards on the higher difficulty to make the game more difficult for the player.

There is a very big problem with complexity and AI. Other players write that the game is too simple. That players can bankrupt competitors at the Ultra Complicated level and ask to make it even stronger. How to please everyone? I definitely can't make AI easier if other players complain that it is too weak.
If we talk about writing AI from scratch, now we can not do it. I understand that there are things that could be improved.. So we decided to leave the price at $12. Although games with such functionality and this level of design cost about $ 18, We decided that it was better to leave the price lower. The main thing is that the players were satisfied

Those players who complain about the game being too hard haven't really got into the game yet. When you first start a game ofc it will be hard but once you start playing it more, you will gain more knowledge about the game mechanics and you will find more optimal ways to beat the game so it will become easier.

So those complaining about the game being too hard don't know yet how to play the game. Those who complain about the game being too easy have already mastered the game. So yeah the game is actually EASY once you know how to take advantage of it. But it will remain hard if you are not knowledgeable about the game mechanics.

So to fix this for the EBM2, make sure you teach the players well through a well-detailed tutorial. Because right now there's a lot of players don't know how to use fear, how to freeze assets, how to reduce competitor, how to make war etc... which makes the game a lot harder for them than it should.

Having a tutorial means players will be more knowledgeable about the game mechanics so therefore you can make EBM2 really difficult because players will have knowledge about the game and they will have fun. No more complains about the game being too hard.

ALSO! Please fix the UI for the next game and make it more friendly and you will have a really great game!

[Prevenge]

I just bought the game, then played 22 hours straight. got my first win on easy with killer ending. I can already see ways to cripple opponents fairly quickly about 1/3 way into any match. I don't recommend sweeping changes as some of the fun of easy was the laid back style. I suggest you raise the base price to 18 then have many 33% off sales as some people like myself enjoy sales but will give you the same profit. i will give you my opinion of hard or ultra as i try it next. there is a whole ton of tactical options in the game that i tripped across and haven't seen in the guides i've read and i really appreciate the detail. thanks. i will write a review after next game.