Game is a bit too easy after 2.0

[tobapuw]

Hi all,

First of all, I want to say that I’m loving this game and I don’t want to bash it in any way but just to share my opinion on it.

After investing quite a few hours pre 2.0 I can say that I always feared when I had to deal with major powers especially Antigonids and Seleucids. I remember how carefully I had to plan ahead every move playing as Tylos in order to form Babylon. But what about now? I’ve played three games (I know it’s not a huge sample size but still counts I guess) as Bactria, Sparta and lastly as Adiabene and within first 30-40 years in all cases I’ve managed to build a vast and powerful empire and that’s nothing to do with my genius but simply because I could quickly occupy huge swamps of land almost unopposed. As has been mentioned in these forums that the part of the problem is the fact that AI demolishes most of the forts almost instantly after the beginning of the game and secondly it takes a considerable amount of time to get from A to B now if your armies have been raised somewhere else i.e. when I attacked Seleucids after they got engaged in a war with Antigonids I quickly occupied most of the Eastern part of the empire. Additionally, as you don’t even need to bother occupying the remaining land in each province a territory by territory now in order to increase a war score, you just need to rush to corresponding provinces’ capitals and job is done.

Conclusion: IMO, the game got significantly easier past 2.0 and I’m lacking to find any reason to play any longer than the initial 30-50 years as there’s practically no challenge after that point.

Suggestion: at least on higher difficulties give an AI a free fort in every provincial capital. Thoughts?

 

[hashinshin]

the AI refusing to use mercenaries, and overly prioritizing sieges over... you know winning the war? Is a bit of an issue.

 

[Marty651]

I’ve played three games (I know it’s not a huge sample size but still counts I guess) as Bactria, Sparta and lastly as Adiabene and within first 30-40 years in all cases I’ve managed to build a vast and powerful empire...

May I ask on which difficulty settings?

 

[tobapuw]

May I ask on which difficulty settings?

I play on hard, as I always thought it’s a good balance between crazy bonuses, which AI gets on VH and normal. I don’t think the above mentioned issues do directly relate to difficulty though, however I might be wrong.

 

[Andrzej2]

A bit too easy? It's an understatement. I played full games as Judea, Sparta and Epir and in each case I easily won without breaking a sweat.

And previous version of Imperator were also too easy. Other AI empires were harder to beat but internal threat was as much non existened as it is in current version. I played 92 hours in Imperator so far and I had only 3 I repeat THREE civil wars and two of them I deliberately caused by revoking holdings, tyranny end other role play actions.

All those civil wars were disappointing in size but those I had on 2:0 were really silly. One even began only on one territory!

I think that the fact that there is a levy system makes civil wars so weak becouse people of our culture mainly revolt on territories of foreign culture so they can't field any decent army from non integrated pops. Levy from capital province will easily outnumber them in most cases.

The action of make friends should be removed. Having up to 4 completly loyal characters make game really easy. As soon as outliner tells me that someone is going disloyal I just click bribe, make friends and I almost never have civil wars as I said already.


I really regret that it's the case becouse Im a veteran of Eu: Rome where civil wars were frequent, bloody and hard to avoid. I had a lot of fun with them, they were bread and butter of this game. Especially considering that at that time EU:Rome system of civil wars creating separate state was revolutionary - in all other paradox titles it was a whack a mole game against unorganised rebels under anarchist flag.


I wish there was a proper difficulty settings - not just simple giving bonuses to the AI but difficulty settings altering gameplay. For example on harder difficulty settings we would have no option to make friends, lower treshold for rebellions, no outliner with loyalty of characters, only vague warning about risk of civil war etc.

 

[Yuanshu]

Hmm this is weird i have an exact opposite thought
I tried 2 long campaigns with Judea and Bactria and got my ass kicked in the 2 campaigns
With Bactria you can really take advantage of the Diadochi wars and take large amounts of land from the Seleukids since you have a good amount of levies plus the problem and that your AE goes into space and that is a seventh death due to the fact of the culture It is the wrong religion of the territories and there is no way for you to avoid internal problems because its stability and political influence is not enough to stabilize the country in time.
Well maybe I’m getting old and I haven’t picked up on the new changes yet...

 

[ItsJustMyShadow]

You know, there comes a time in PDX games when you are just too good to play them and you need to set yourself arbitrary blockades. Just like Florry in EU4 playing on VH without loans, allies and save-scumming as Granada...

 

[Akbar The Great]

You know, there comes a time in PDX games when you are just too good to play them and you need to set yourself arbitrary blockades. Just like Florry in EU4 playing on VH without loans, allies and save-scumming as Granada...

This is mostly true, the player is always going to be able to defeat the AI in the end. But as ever, it doesn't seem they can get AI forts right. They should just force the AI to have a free low level fort in the province captial, that doesn't ytake up a building slot but allows the AI to defend itself a bit. That would prevent the AI just deleting all their forts all the time.

 

[Andrzej2]

Something came to my mind when thinking about difficulty of Imperator. What happened to slave revolts? Were they removed along the way? I haven't seen any on 2.0.

 

[King Jeff of Swinedale]

For me it has been way too easy taking out all of Greece (minors) in just a couple of wars, but then it becomes the opposite with diadochi and rome fielding infinite merc stacks with 10+ HI which I can't beat even if savescummed

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

For me it has been way too easy taking out all of Greece (minors) in just a couple of wars, but then it becomes the opposite with diadochi and rome fielding infinite merc stacks with 10+ HI which I can't beat even if savescummed

You don't need to beat their armies, just evade their inept army AI & siege down all of the provinces they've left undefended (~95% of them), because they sold all the forts.
Or, abuse the broken opinion modifiers to diplo-vassalize as feudatories/client states every neighbour that's slightly smaller than you.
Not to mention the infinite army tradition exploit.

2.0 has broken quite a few major elements of the game, that when exploited remove almost all challenge from the game.

 

[nikkythegreat]

Same here, i played Athens, Emporion, and Byzantion in hard.

I found it really easy to blob out and be strong enough to take on major powers toe to toe. In 1.5 I had to restart a couple of times and save scummed. But this was not needed in 2.0. It was just one straight forward game.


Maybe this is the best patch to get that spice must flow achievement that has eluded me.

 

[Chidori]

Agree!

 

[Kinkness]

the AI refusing to use mercenaries, and overly prioritizing sieges over... you know winning the war? Is a bit of an issue.

I see AI buying mercenaries quite often actually..

In my Albion game, as Ireland, every war I got into, all the mercs available were constantly snatched up by both sides. The REAL problem... is that the AI don't know how to manage these mercenaries.. and they'll yolo them at 0 morale right into your armies, annihilating their mercs, and they go back to being neutral again...

 

[Bouchart]

I managed to pull off my first world conquest on 2.0.1. Granted it was on very easy difficulty, but world conquests are extremely tedious and boring after a certain point in my experience with games by Paradox.

The game might be easier for you guys but not everyone is a powergamer that can conquer the world as Samaria on very hard, blindfolded.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Hi all,

First of all, I want to say that I’m loving this game and I don’t want to bash it in any way but just to share my opinion on it.

After investing quite a few hours pre 2.0 I can say that I always feared when I had to deal with major powers especially Antigonids and Seleucids. I remember how carefully I had to plan ahead every move playing as Tylos in order to form Babylon. But what about now? I’ve played three games (I know it’s not a huge sample size but still counts I guess) as Bactria, Sparta and lastly as Adiabene and within first 30-40 years in all cases I’ve managed to build a vast and powerful empire and that’s nothing to do with my genius but simply because I could quickly occupy huge swamps of land almost unopposed. As has been mentioned in these forums that the part of the problem is the fact that AI demolishes most of the forts almost instantly after the beginning of the game and secondly it takes a considerable amount of time to get from A to B now if your armies have been raised somewhere else i.e. when I attacked Seleucids after they got engaged in a war with Antigonids I quickly occupied most of the Eastern part of the empire. Additionally, as you don’t even need to bother occupying the remaining land in each province a territory by territory now in order to increase a war score, you just need to rush to corresponding provinces’ capitals and job is done.

Conclusion: IMO, the game got significantly easier past 2.0 and I’m lacking to find any reason to play any longer than the initial 30-50 years as there’s practically no challenge after that point.

Suggestion: at least on higher difficulties give an AI a free fort in every provincial capital. Thoughts?

I think limiting the Imperial Challenge CB to the Diadochi, special missions like Rome/Parthia, or nations with greater than say 250 territories would help with this problem.

 

[Herennius]

Something came to my mind when thinking about difficulty of Imperator. What happened to slave revolts? Were they removed along the way? I haven't seen any on 2.0.

Yes, they are gone - but that no change of 2.0; they already vanished earlier for unknown reasons:

No more slave revolts since 1.5.x?

Title. Maybe it is just me....but I had none since 1.5 and this feels a bit suspicious, as there was for me before hardly a playthorugh without one and especially because my current game has a lot of unhappy slaves. I read the DD about the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Hemothep]

I think limiting the Imperial Challenge CB to the Diadochi, special missions like Rome/Parthia, or nations with greater than say 250 territories would help with this problem.

I don't think the Imperial Challange CB should be limited to specific countries. It would defeat the point. However: The AI realy needs to build some forts. I just roflstomp rome at the moment, not because I'm that much stronger then them (I actually take quite some heavy losses), but because I can instaannex everything. A few defensive lines would make it 10x more difficult. The same is true for a aggressive use of navy in a defensive war. They could easily throw some 1k LC stacks at my coast line, but they just don't.

 

[stratigo]

I found the game harder with the army changes making it much harder to build an effective military while playing smoll but tall.

But then again, I am not a map painter and the AI DOES seem pretty incompetent at defending itself, so if I tried for maximum conquest, I probably wouldn't have an issue

 

[schnupfi]

First time player, playing rome on very hard. I united the Italian peninsula and integrated all people. All parties like me 100%.
No disloyal people that I couldn't bribe to loyalty.... am I missing something?
. I am sitting on cash and don't even feel the need to spend it on buildings since I have 40000 levies and 10000 legions and 18+ money per month.


I don't even bother checking cultures and buildings. I am hoping that I will implode at some point. But so far.... very boring