Playing the AI not an option

[Crazygunner1]

Hi fellows

I bought the game about a week ago. Played 3 games now on the most difficult lvl, 2 as central powers and 1 as allies. First game was a bit challanging since i am not really firmiliar with world war 1 so there were a lot of surprises. But not completely managable. When France finally fell the door was open to do pretty much anything. Second game was a walk in the park...by 1917 the whole map was pretty much taken by the central powers exept US.

My first game with the allies was so boring...all i had to do was hold the line and inflict some damage on the attacking opponent. When allies had mustered up their strenght i could start pushing the central powers back rather easily.

So you need to play PBEMs or hotseat in order to have fun. But there are seriously a lot of imbalances in the game for this to happen. Mostly the units are not specialized with the results that only thing being built is infantry to hold the line and artillery. The rest is only for fun. Not to mention seawarfare wich is totally uneccessary.

So my question i quess...is this. I see there is talk about beta versions and stuff....but are there any upgrades that will enable this game to be better balanced?

Crazyg

[Plaid]

Hello there!
I have very little idea about PBEM balance, just started to play it. Is it really imbalanced this bad? I had noticed only one negative aspect - player have to pay high upkeep for battleships, while they stay at port and do nothing (but its actually realistic). Also disbanding battleship on the very first turn looks like a good plan, especially for central powers - you gain 50 PP instantly and don't have to pay upkeep anymore - this deffinetely needs fixing, players should be encouraged to keep their surface fleets.
I can say that building infantry and artillery pretty much reflects what actually happened. If game encouarage player to produce large armies of armour (like some other WW I games), i would consider it worse, then infantry based warfare.

Also I love commander system a lot. Its much better, then purchasing leaders like in CEAW.

[Crazygunner1]

Hello there!
I have very little idea about PBEM balance, just started to play it. Is it really imbalanced this bad? I had noticed only one negative aspect - player have to pay high upkeep for battleships, while they stay at port and do nothing (but its actually realistic). Also disbanding battleship on the very first turn looks like a good plan, especially for central powers - you gain 50 PP instantly and don't have to pay upkeep anymore - this deffinetely needs fixing, players should be encouraged to keep their surface fleets.
I can say that building infantry and artillery pretty much reflects what actually happened. If game encouarage player to produce large armies of armour (like some other WW I games), i would consider it worse, then infantry based warfare.

Also I love commander system a lot. Its much better, then purchasing leaders like in CEAW.

Well i am not comparing to other commander games. Think this should stand out since it was a totally different war and i do like it. But there is little room for tactical manouver when playing either side. It´s a little unfair to compare those 2 games as well, since Commander Europe at war has almost 3 years of development and testing behind. The first game that was released is not nearly as good as this one This one can be great....but needs alot of work

Also take a look at production cities, Madrid and Stockholm are worth almost as much as Berlin? In Russia there is nothing of value exept Petrograd, so why focus on taking those other cities...in Russia.

[Plaid]

Also take a look at production cities, Madrid and Stockholm are worth almost as much as Berlin? In Russia there is nothing of value exept Petrograd, so why focus on taking those other cities...in Russia.

How to see PP production of city by the way?

[Crazygunner1]

Also take a look at production cities, Madrid and Stockholm are worth almost as much as Berlin? In Russia there is nothing of value exept Petrograd, so why focus on taking those other cities...in Russia.

How to see PP production of city by the way?

Press space....but i am not sure how it counts if it is the actual number, think so...

[Umeu]

try to take petrograd lol, the only initial way is by sea and you will not succeed if the russian player pays attention and/or kept his fleet. if you can take petrograd by land it means youve already penetraded half of russia and you have broken russia anyway.

i do agree that multiplayer balance needs some work, check the link in my sig and you can post your thoughts and ideas there on how to balance it. the devs read the thread too.

[Amaranthus]

Disbanding fleets now carries a NM penalty of 10% in the new patch, so it's a much less attractive option.

[Crazygunner1]

Thanks alot guys...i will logg in and come with some suggestion on how to make the game better

[stockwellpete]

I have just won my last two games against the AI on "privileged" quite comfortably, once as the Central Powers, the other time as the Entente. I started playing in about the middle of November, I think - so it has taken me about 6 weeks to really get to grips with the game. Seeing that I can hardly win a game in multi-player it must mean that many other players can deal with the AI quite comfortably by now. So I think it needs an extra level of difficulty to be added at some stage.

What I will do now is to increase my own "house rules" for AI games to make it harder for myself - e.g. no scrapping of units in any circumstances; not attacking Warsaw or Milan on the first turn Russia and Italy enter the game so that they have no chance of defending those cities. Other things I could consider doing would be to make it compulsory to garrison my capital city and the other "starred" cities that are vital for unit production; and also make it compulsory to garrison all my forts. There may be other things that I can think of to give myself a harder challenge with the AI in future.

[Myrddraal]

If you like a challenge, declare war one few nations at random

[Crazygunner1]

I doubt the answer Will be to make ai better or more degrees of difficulty. There will always be situations where the ai cannot make sound judgements. So the answer must be pbeams or hotseat play against other humans thats the only way the game can keep it's luster.

In order for that to happen there must be some kind of balance in the game when playing human opponents.

[Plaid]

Actually I didn't notice major flaws in PBEM balance (apart from navy scrapping, but you can play with house rules for now).
Didn't finish that many games though.

[Umeu]

I have just won my last two games against the AI on "privileged" quite comfortably, once as the Central Powers, the other time as the Entente. I started playing in about the middle of November, I think - so it has taken me about 6 weeks to really get to grips with the game. Seeing that I can hardly win a game in multi-player it must mean that many other players can deal with the AI quite comfortably by now. So I think it needs an extra level of difficulty to be added at some stage.

What I will do now is to increase my own "house rules" for AI games to make it harder for myself - e.g. no scrapping of units in any circumstances; not attacking Warsaw or Milan on the first turn Russia and Italy enter the game so that they have no chance of defending those cities. Other things I could consider doing would be to make it compulsory to garrison my capital city and the other "starred" cities that are vital for unit production; and also make it compulsory to garrison all my forts. There may be other things that I can think of to give myself a harder challenge with the AI in future.

i dont think this is a fair comparison, playing vs ai is so different than playing vs people. i play rts alot and sc2 has some of the best ai ive seen in a game so far. however at insane difficulty it didnt take me longer than a few days to beat the campaign. people who have experience with playing games will almost without exception figure the ai out within a few days. i think this game has done quite a good job with the ai, it does many things a player would do and ive actually learned a trick or to from the ai. its just that the start of the game is too rigid, which is understandable given the setting, and i suppose a all open or random alliance scenario would solve that for singleplayer. the game has been and still is alot of fun, but also still needs alot of work, this is not a bad thing imo, it means that it has alot of potential. for strategy pvp is really what it is all about though, even when the ai has sometimes given me better challenges than some players, a player i will have to figure out every time and will also react different again once ive been figured out while an ai has to be figured out only once.

[stockwellpete]

i dont think this is a fair comparison, playing vs ai is so different than playing vs people. i play rts alot and sc2 has some of the best ai ive seen in a game so far. however at insane difficulty it didnt take me longer than a few days to beat the campaign. people who have experience with playing games will almost without exception figure the ai out within a few days. i think this game has done quite a good job with the ai, it does many things a player would do and ive actually learned a trick or to from the ai. its just that the start of the game is too rigid, which is understandable given the setting, and i suppose a all open or random alliance scenario would solve that for singleplayer. the game has been and still is alot of fun, but also still needs alot of work, this is not a bad thing imo, it means that it has alot of potential. for strategy pvp is really what it is all about though, even when the ai has sometimes given me better challenges than some players, a player i will have to figure out every time and will also react different again once ive been figured out while an ai has to be figured out only once.

I don't see where I have actually made a comparison. I was just letting the developers know how long it took me to figure the game out (I would not call myself an experienced gamer) - I am not sure how many hours it took me in those six weeks but it was quite a lot. I have played about half a dozen games right through to the finish against the AI now. I do agree that you have to get things right at the start - and if you do then you have a good chance of beating the AI comfortably. There are a few things that can be improved quite easily, I would think. Some have already been mentioned in other threads but issues like . . . the Russian positioning around Warsaw at the start; the suicidal behaviour of the Russian fleet; the British stopping their advance each time once they capture Jerusalem, Damascus and Beirut; Italian troops going off to France and not defending Italy etc.