Slitherine

Hi folks, I'm just wondering why you can't choose which side you play in a scenario? I assume the single player scenarios are historically accurate but the player tends to get the more difficult side while the multiplayer versions try and balance the scenarios? Obviously it is difficult to say if a unit is superior or highly superior for example so that sort of thing can be used for balance? Or do some multiplayer scenarios add units that were not actually present? Most single player games are rated hard or very hard. It would be nice to play a scenario rated easy or medium for a break occasionally The other side normally seems to have the stronger force. I would like to be offered the choice to be them!

Chris

Obviously I cannot speak for user scenarios, but the vanilla scenarios have bespoke AI (on top of the standard game AI) which would all need to be rewritten for the scenario to work the other way round. Most of them would be too easy the other way round so we did not do this.

The multiplayer scenarios use adjusted victory conditions to balance the results - i.e. you can lose the battle, but if you do better than the odds would suggest, you can still win the scenario. Or you can win the battle, but if you don't win it decisively enough you lose the scenario.

This could have been used in the SP scenarios, the sticking point was the large amount of time required to develop and test the bespoke AI for each reversed scenario.

However, for the next game in the series we have taken the desire to be able to play games both ways on board, and balanced the scenarios accordingly for each difficulty level whichever side the player chooses. This is easier to do for an earlier period where the numbers specified in contemporary histories are thought by historians to usually be exaggerated one way or the other, giving a large range of possible actual numbers involved. Thus there is more scope for varying the opposing forces without being unhistorical.

I didn't think about the AI scripting involved. At the moment I'm winning about 40% of the scenarios I play. I'm happier when winning around 60% to 70%. Some seem to be so difficult and I don't like to play a scenario twice - although that would give me a better chance of victory. Also I don't like to play a game on less than medium level as it feels a bit like cheating. Looking forward to the new game - can't wait to find out what it is!

Thanks,
Chris

You can just lower difficulty until you have achieved your desired win loss ratio. Don't be ashamed to do so. It is not cheating. Going lower than medium does not mean you are worse than other players. That is why Richard did not literally call it Medium or Normal level.

Difficulty is calibrated by points disparity between player and AI. In Sengoku Jidai for example, the historical setting may not always be the middle difficulty level. It may be lower or higher. I suppose Richard has the same design philosophy in P&S.

jomni wrote:You can just lower difficulty until you have achieved your desired win loss ratio. Don't be ashamed to do so. It is not cheating. Going lower than medium does not mean you are worse than other players. That is why Richard did not literally call it Medium or Normal level.

Difficulty is calibrated by points disparity between player and AI. In Sengoku Jidai for example, the historical setting may not always be the middle difficulty level. It may be lower or higher. I suppose Richard has the same design philosophy in P&S.

I didn't think that changing the difficulty level worked when you're playing scenarios?!?

Bombax wrote:

jomni wrote:You can just lower difficulty until you have achieved your desired win loss ratio. Don't be ashamed to do so. It is not cheating. Going lower than medium does not mean you are worse than other players. That is why Richard did not literally call it Medium or Normal level.

Difficulty is calibrated by points disparity between player and AI. In Sengoku Jidai for example, the historical setting may not always be the middle difficulty level. It may be lower or higher. I suppose Richard has the same design philosophy in P&S.

I didn't think that changing the difficulty level worked when you're playing scenarios?!?

It doesn't on most of the user created scenarios, but it does in the vanilla scenarios.

You have to change the difficulty level before starting the scenario, not during. In most cases it alters the difficulty by altering the balance of forces somewhat at the start of the scenario. In a few cases it alters the morale of one or other side, where this is appropriate to the historical situation. Obviously this means that only one of the settings will represent the actual historical numbers, but those are sometimes disputed anyway, and certainly the exact effects of demoralisation due to events earlier in the campaign are open to discussion.