Setting difficulty level

[nightshades]

Hi to you all

Im new to this forum and i dont know how many regulars post around.
I bought Spartan earlier this week and ordered Gates of Troy today.


First of all you guys got to know that I played at Chariot of War for years so im almost a veteran of this kind of gameplay !

I started the game with Lacedemone at the Hard difficulty setting.

Really, it was hard. The messenians, the argians, the cretans, and the actaeans massed troops against me and actually couldnt manage to protect my cities.

So I restarted with differents factions, to try them.

I tried Argos, builded my relations with my neighbor, slowly but firmly upgraded my city to the higher level and then built a large army of Elite hoplite. Once done I conquered a large city and the rest was easy.

The problem is that even after 200 turns, the opponents didnt build upgraded units has elite hoplite so it was then very easy to conquer the whole greece with a single army (constantly healed)

So i figured Hard was too easy for me so I tried Impossible difficulty setting with the Macedonians.

God ! it was intense. I didnt lose any city but it was increbly hard just to maintain. After maybe 100 turns I managed to conquer a city but then noticed that one of the Thracian faction were massing 5 Huge army against me. Im like "what the hell" and eventually lost to those Thracians.

So I tried macedonians again with the Very Hard difficulty setting

For the 150 turns it was quite enjoying, having to act carefully not to be invaded and all, but once I started to create Phalangite and the elite spearman, everything started to be too easy. I had massive ressources and 3 Huge army composed with the best type of soldiers and battles started to be too easy. All they had to oppose me were Astynomia and others light infantry and Sometimes proto-hoplite. So i began to feel bored to conquer.. heal, conquer... it was getting too easy.

So im asking, whats wrong with the difficulty settings ? how come at the very hard setting, opponents cant manage to have upgraded units ? Are they going to reach highest upgrade later on or something ?

Sorry for being long and thanks for reading and commenting my post !

[IainMcNeil]

The AI is very complex for Spartan & Gates of Troy and in some games it will upgrade its cities better than others. If you're not happy with the default settings there are ways to tweak the AI to behave more how you would like, but you need to edit teh files - i.e. mod them. There are instructions available on teh forum for doing this if you desire!

It's a fne balance between getting the AI to build troops and city upgrades. If the AI puts toomuch in to cities its left defenceless and too much in to armies it does not upgrade fast enough. We felt it was better for the AI to upgrade more slowly and ensure it had enough troops, so we erred on the side of caution. By editing the files you can specify the split of resources between troops and buildings.

[anguille]

My first question would be:

Did you patch Spartan? Gates of Troy is fully updated and you will be able to play both games when launching GoT.


Not every starting position is equally difficult...some are easy and some are very hard (try Rhodos in the largest map)...and this is valid for the AI too...

[joseph_kerr]

I've been thinking about modifying the eastern countries, they just can't hang with the greeks. Their archers and cavalry can be deadly but both consume just too many resources apparently even for the AI for them to ever really thrive as nations.

It might be overly simplistic but something i've been doing lately is randomising the map. No idea why but the countries produce elite troops on a far more consistent basis when i do. Just played a campaign fighting against spartans in the north country. Digging them out of their towns was brutal and bloody with nearly every city defended by entire armies of spartiates.

[Redpossum]

How do you randomise it?