Is this game too easy?

[unmerged(26888)]

First, let me say that I really like the game

Still, after having played EUI & II and Victoria, I find this game to be a lot less challenging. Two examples:

I'm using very hard/furious in my current Norway campaign, and it is just too easy. I'm gonna change difficulty to hardest but I doubt it will help as the AI never (and I do mean _never_) attacks me unless I attack one of their allies. I'm on my way to becoming king of Scotland after about 30 years gameplay, keeping my reputation honourable by attacking the incredibly weak pagan nations in the baltic. I have an army of 5000 men, which is less than all my neighbours. (But plenty enough to defeat the AI of the pagans).

In my previous game as Toulouse I took 80% of Africa and became king of Egypt and North Africa... I stopped before I became king of France as well (lacking two provinces), it was just no challenge. I had a 60000 man army, and the AI didn't even attack me when I claimed Egypt (at that time I had only 5000 men after the war. The kingdom of Tunisia had 27000).

True, I haven't met the mongol hordes yet in the previous games, but I doubt they would be too hard after conquering their way through Europe when you face them with an army of 100000+ men

I don't mean to be overly critical but in EUII my reputation would have been down the toilet with all that title grabbing, and on the most difficult settings such conquest would only be possible with a fairly strong nation (which Norway and Toulouse isn't).

Anyone else who feel that they should change the difficulty settings? Maybe I just haven't played enough and will get some nasty surprises , but I've read in another post about a guy who had a similar success with Wales(!), so I doubt it .

 

[Damocles]

Of course the game is going to be easy if you cheat.

There are three simple ways to make Crusader Kings harder, which incidentally works for all Paradox games.

1) Do not save and reload. I.E, saving and reloading until you get that perfect child or education or win a battle, whatever.

2) Do not pause the game. Make it as slow or as fast as you want in certain stages, but do not pause it unless you need to actually get up. On the lowest setting, a single month takes quite awhile, giving you plenty of time in a year of gameplay. That is more then enough to do even the finest combing of other courts.

3) I'm sorry, did I mention to STOP SAVING AND RELOADING!? The Paradox AI is actually damn decent if you don't exploit it. Granted, it takes self-control.

The hardest difficulty setting is also much better, since it makes popping out kids the most realistic. Also, be sure you have the latest patch. The AI should attack if it senses it can actually win. But if you save and reload up to the perfect Empire, obviously, it'll never have a chance.

EDIT: Having a higher aggression setting is a double edged sword. Since the AI will make more 'foolish' decisions and work itself into exhaustion more often. See for yourself with a couple test games the difference between max settings. Another tactic is later startdates.

DOUBLE EDIT: And don't forget the game is about acquiring prestige and piety for jove's sake! Conquer half the world and end up with -20,000 Piety/Prestige and you'll still be an abject failure. Half the challenge is achieving greatness while still raising your prestige and piety at the same time instead of vainglorious grabs for power.

 

[unmerged(26888)]

Of course the game is going to be easy if you cheat.

There are three simple ways to make Crusader Kings harder, which incidentally works for all Paradox games.

1) Do not save and reload. I.E, saving and reloading until you get that perfect child or education or win a battle, whatever.

2) Do not pause the game. Make it as slow or as fast as you want in certain stages, but do not pause it unless you need to actually get up. On the lowest setting, a single month takes five minutes, giving you an hour for a year of gameplay. That is more then enough to do even the finest combing of other courts.

3) I'm sorry, did I mention to STOP SAVING AND RELOADING!?

Hehe

I normally never reload in a game, because it takes out the fun.

I have done it a few times in the Toulouse game because I was testing options (like, what would happen if I release a duke as vassal while I'm a duke too - learning how the game works). Of course you can call that cheating, I don't have a problem with that.

My point is that it becomes too easy to just attack weaker neighbours knowing that the AI will always leave you alone. Of course I could attack Sweden or England myself, but thats besides my point - that the AI isn't aggressive at all.

What would be the point in playing with a strong nation like England?

Sorry for being so critical, but I really feel it should be more like EUII and Vicky in difficulty. I mean, I'm not particularly good at this game and still...

 

[unmerged(26888)]

EDIT: Having a higher aggression setting is a double edged sword. Since the AI will make more 'foolish' decisions and work itself into exhaustion more often. See for yourself with a couple test games the difference between max settings. Another tactic is later startdates.

Good input, I will try it!

DOUBLE EDIT: And don't forget the game is about acquiring prestige and piety for jove's sake! Conquer half the world and end up with -20,000 Piety/Prestige and you'll still be an abject failure. Half the challenge is achieving greatness while still raising your prestige and piety at the same time instead of vainglorious grabs for power.

I've had a honourable reputation and good piety and prestige with all rulers except one who inherited with a negative prestige of 1000 . Still, you are quite rigth that this is a better way too se the game. But you must grab pagan/muslim provinces to really increase your piety I guess

 

[Riddermark]

Play as count of Karvuna, become king of bulgarian and emperor of byzantium and then come back boasting about it

 

[unmerged(26888)]

Play as count of Karvuna, become king of bulgarian and emperor of byzantium and then come back boasting about it

Did you miss my point on purpose!?

As I said I'm not that good at this game, I only got it five days ago. But I thought it seemed far easier than the other Paradox games, so you prove my point then I guess

It is still a really entertaining game.

 

[Riddermark]

oh, whatever

 

[SonofWinter]

He is not saying you will win with the count, he is saying try playing with him and you will see difficulty with playing a weak province. A king is still a badass and so is a duke, try playing a poor count and then tell us how good you are.

 

[unmerged(26888)]

He is not saying you will win with the count, he is saying try playing with him and you will see difficulty with playing a weak province. A king is still a badass and so is a duke, try playing a poor count and then tell us how good you are.

If you are referring to me:

I haven't said that I am particularely good at this game. I didn't post to boast about my skill. It should be fun playing with a kingdom I feel, and Norway has less manpower than the french duchies for example . In other paradox games playing with a small kingdom can be quite challenging, so I thougth my own country would be fun to play.

 

[Damocles]

Yeah, I didn't read Tub's post as boasting about any achievement just as an honest question about making the game harder for himself.

Hopefully, I helped him . If I didn't, he'll have to move on to multiplayer.

Personally, I find playing as Orthodox tends to be twice as hard as Catholic or as a Spanish since you're right there on the front line. Tho it is possible to have a hard game even as the King of France if you tailor your own playing style and RP a bit.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Well the game is 'easier' then EU2 and Victoria and HOI. But that doesn't mean it isn't less fun.

Are you playing the latest patch (103b). The AI has improved a lot since 1.01.
But still I haven't had the AI declare war on me yet.

How did you gain so much prestige so quickly?To lay claim to all those titles.

 

[unmerged(26888)]

Well the game is 'easier' then EU2 and Victoria and HOI. But that doesn't mean it isn't less fun.

Are you playing the latest patch (103b). The AI has improved a lot since 1.01.
But still I haven't had the AI declare war on me yet.

How did you gain so much prestige so quickly?To lay claim to all those titles.

With Toulouse (Kingdom of Egypt after some time) I got lots of prestige from attacking any muslim country I could find who weren't allied with or part of the kingdoms who were stronger than me. That gave me 10 - 15 dukes as vassals and a king title and that helped my normal prestige gain.

Besides, normally my heir would have around 150 prestige when he inherited from being duke in one of my duchys, although one of them came with -1000

I'm playing with 1.03b, it was out before I bought the game.

 

[unmerged(12680)]

My views of CK is that it's a bit of a "sandbox" game, rather then a "challenge" game. Becoming great as even the tiniest count requires nothing more then spamming a large AI lord with marriage offers until he relents, so most of the fun (for me) lies in role-playing about with the different titles and characters.

 

[unmerged(29517)]

I found too that the northerns pagans at least are very easy to smash. Start as Duke of Brandenburg or Novgorod - head east (or west) with 2000k and in a couple of years you can be king of Lithhuania with plenty of rich provinces...

I usually play at hard\agressive and I do reload - especially usefull when I'm hit with multiple CTDs... In any case I've modified the "provinceimprovement" file extensively to make it harder to become rich early. Now the prices are high (10,000 for a huge castle - 2000 for a university - etc), there are multiple techs/improvement required for each new one. Too bad the "required_terrain" condition isn't implemented ( ) as it could have been used to really make some areas strategically important.

Regarding the prestige goal - it's relatively easy to get really huge loads of prestige points if you know what to do: Bid your time and claim all the title of a given duchy, one at a time. Allow "rest" periods between each claim to safeguard your reputation. Then when you have them all and are sure of your rear (vassal loyalty etc) attack with one huge army - conquer each desmene one after the other - smash your ennemy's army - let him squeal for peace for some time after you control all his land. Then usurp his ducal title and finally force him to acknowledge all the claims at once. I collected more than 40000 pp once (as Novgorod against Chernigov - normal\agressive mode).

Speaking of which - how can I beef up the contigents of the barbarian tribes of the Baltic ? It's simply too easy.


G.

 

[Quivis]

I think that Pagans and Muslims are too weak. It shouldn't be like one war and you've got all Baltic provinces without bad consequences

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Speaking of which - how can I beef up the contigents of the barbarian tribes of the Baltic ? It's simply too easy.

A few suggestions

1. Increase their military techs (of course, this will tend to leak, but it will make them stronger in the start)
2. Increase the provincial base income of their provinces to make them field larger armies (which will, unfortunately, make their land even more attractive)
3. Script events happening only for pagan rulers adding points to martial and stewardship attributes. (E.g. MTTH 12 months, +5 martial if less than 20 already - this would make all Pagan rulers have martial 20-24 in short order ) Silly, but it would boost both their prowess in battle, their income, and their armysizes.
4. Script events granting pagan rulers extra troops for free if they are at war. (MTTH 6 months, atwar=yes, 200HI/100AR/500LI)

You will probably still be able to outmaneouvre most of them if you want to, but it should make actual battles somewhat harder.

 

[Lucius Sulla]

Try playing in christian iberia, and face the automatic-rifle armed muslims with your sticks&stones army... that will add difficulty a bit .

 

[unmerged(28015)]

Well i am still at my first game with Scotland (1131) and have right now (after the conquest of a muslim territory) only 1300 soldiers at my command and very little money. There are not much Pagans around Scotland as i can see...the game doesn't seem to easy for me. Maybe it's me or my starting position but it's a challenge and a lot of fun to keep the 3 values high enough (money, prestige and piety). The management of the family, keeping track of successors is a lot of fun. Lastly my nephew (i gave some lands to my brother and my nephew took over when he passed away) started a war against me and i almost killed him....that's pretty freaking, isn't it? :rofl:

PS i keep looking at weaker neighbours....can't see that much. :wacko:

 

[Prugel]

The difference in power between a mighty kingdom and a lowly Count of Finveden is staggering. If the AI was programmed to attack weak rulers, an independent count would never have a chance.
Imagine building a powerful Duke from a weak count, only to be DoW'd by an alliance between the German King and the French King. Just pray they don't take claims on you.

Once you learn the game, a kingdom is very easy. For the most part. Except if your King goes nuts, get excommunicated - and is without heirs.
The pagan tribes are an easy way to counties, money, manpower and piety (low BB). But imagine what it would be like, if the AI took all those in the first 20 years....? Not fun for a count, I'll tell you.

It's very difficult the balance a game with so wide a range in power. Still, the game is easier than EU2, if you powerplay. A bit more penalty for quick expansion, or to make piety a bit harder to come by, would be ok with me.

 

[Totmes III]

I also find it a bit too easy to rule conquered lands. If I double my realm by taking muslim or pagan lands, I should suffer more actual revolts (where people take up arms), especially if my armies are away crusading.