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Thread: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

  1. #1

    Icon5 Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    Hello dev team, I have some questions regarding the effects that the difficulty settings have upon the game for DOM and the previous mods (TNS, CI/FE).

    I know that in vanilla RTW that the difficulty effects are that for campaign difficulty the AI gets free money and becomes more aggressive (~4000 + denarii on hard & ~10000 denarii on VH), while for battle difficulty its just straight stat buffs to their units (+4 atk/def/morale on Hard & +7 atk/def/morale on VH) which is just plain ridiculous and results in stupid stuff like plain Hastati beating a hoplite phanlanx head on, peltasts routing light calvary, and peasants beating the holy crapoli out of actual units, ect.

    I know that you have heavily modified and bended the game's code for DOM, but what exactly did you do for the difficulty setting's effects?

    I know that you probably did something for the previous mods considering that you renamed the difficulties into Home in time for tea/Decidedly Tookish/Bullroaring/Laughing at live Dragons, or you could have just renamed them for no reason.

    Can you help please?

  2. #2

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    The effects of difficulty levels are hardcoded and cannot be changed. We have renamed them into something more Tolkien-ish, but they are otherwise as in vanilla.

    The difficulty-related battlefield effects affect only AI attack, not defence or morale. And since we generally use higher values than vanilla for unit stats, a +4/+7 is a less drastic effect comparatively. So, Hard battle difficulty is now quite ok and Very Hard is not ridiculously over the top (though it's still unbalanced).

  3. #3

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    Ah ok, thank you for sharing that information.

    With that in mind however, I'm certain that factions who use a lot of weak spammy units like the Haradrim are going to have an even tougher time against solid factions like RK and Rohan thanks to their trash mobs becoming even less effective against opposing heavy infantry and calvary.

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    Quote Originally Posted by ShimonSays View Post
    Ah ok, thank you for sharing that information.

    With that in mind however, I'm certain that factions who use a lot of weak spammy units like the Haradrim are going to have an even tougher time against solid factions like RK and Rohan thanks to their trash mobs becoming even less effective against opposing heavy infantry and calvary.
    Don't worry about the Haradrim. They've gotten quite a few..additions. Really cool ones.
    It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it.
    Proud supporter and fan of Fourth Age: Total War

  5. #5

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    Not sure if I agree. Let's say that average attack for Harad is 7 and for RK it is 12. A unit with attack 7 increases its attack by 57% if it gets +4, while a unit with attack 12 increases it by 33%. So, a fixed-value bonus is actually a bigger increase for weak units than it is for strong ones.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    I agree with you on the tidbit about attack, but unfortunately the difficulty modifiers also increase def and morale.

    The addition of def and morale are what especially kills IMO. Since the weak units that may have been doing just enough damage to get by their opponents defenses by 1 or 2 points of atk, the addition of that +4 def (not sure if the addition is to armour) will result in them having less atk than the def of the opponent, thus leading to a way lower kill percentage than they would otherwise get, all because their atk is slightly less than the def of their enemy.

    With Harad vs RK, their crappy warbands are going to do as well as orc snaga against the now super buffed RK infantry, barely getting scratch damage in through their defenses, and now becoming even more of an anvil than they previously were while they wait for the elites to hammer the enemy. Speaking of those elites, they're going to be required for any sort of victory against better artificially armed and armored opponents, since swarming them in snaga warbands (maybe even literally since mannish warbands will be only marginally more effective for too much more of a cost) won't effectively work thanks to that +4 morale bonus, which forces fights to the death more often than it should happen.

    In short, this is what kills baby, at least if you're any faction with spammer units as your main line.

    BTW, who else has spammy units in DOM? I guess Dunland does, although those are pretty strong for spam cans, but is (Cultic) Adunnabar the only faction other than Harad/Harondor that has spammy units?

  7. #7

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    Difficulty does not increase either defence or morale, according to my tests. Do you have data that supports that assertion? I have seen a lot of people say this over the forums, but it's usually one person echoing another person's post, who in turn read that somewhere, etc etc, all based on absolutely nothing concrete.

    Haradrian and barbarian factions (in that order) have the highest pop growth and largest unit sizes, so Harad and Rhun (their chief 'representatives') can field large armies. Far Harad, Harondor, Dunland, Khand and North Rhun can also field large armies (relative to their size in provinces of course).
    Last edited by Aradan; October 12, 2014 at 04:22 AM.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    Late confirmation here. Just been too busy all of a sudden to do much.

    Difficulty does truly only affect attack values for the AI.

    It seems that from what I have been able to look at, that the AI's units should also get a morale boost as well, but that seems to be non-functional for the same reason that buildings are unable to give newly trained units a morale boost despite the existence of recruits_morale_bonus and the fact that that line of code can in fact influence the AI's decisions with regards to building.

    So yeah, you were right Aradan.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    @ShimonSays: I have played extensively in the hardest settings with the weakest units against the most "difficult" opponents; Dunland against Gondor, Snagas against Bodyguards; and won regularly. The unit stats are only an issue if your only tactic is throwing the forces together and letting them grind it out. The human player has a infinitely greater advantage than stats can provide in that he can chose from a wide variety of tactics to exploit the AI in "legal" ways; ways for which there are plenty of historical examples: refusing to engage, use of ranged attacks, attrition, starvation, biological warfare, etc.. I can assure you that the unit balancing in the current version is quite sound, and I expect they will be in the upcoming release.

    @Aradan: I just wanted to remind you; considering the immanent release, and that it touches on the OP; of the suggestion sometime back that a workaround be developed, either in the main release or in an add-on to the release, which could combine the more sensible diplomacy of one of the lower difficulty levels with the challenges, both economic and battlefield, of the highest difficulty level. Just to refresh you on the argument: I, and I suspect others, cannot but play the hardest difficulty level as battles and production are simply far too easy at lower levels. Unfortunately, the original game designers considered that the best diplomacy model for the hardest difficulty was that everybody would declare war on you as soon as they were able, and would never accept peace even in the face total and immanent annihilation. Perhaps this is harder, in a way, but it is also quite boring, and practically removes diplomacy from the game, making diplomats rather useless.

    There are several reasons why a lower level paradigm for diplomacy would both make the game more fun, and increase difficulty: if you know that all your neighbors are going to attack you all the time you are not faced with any choices as to where to concentrate your forces, you simply have to attack back in all directions; playing a careful diplomacy game with your neighbors in order to concentrate your forces on fewer fronts is both more entertaining, and, in a good way, more difficult. If we can locate the difficulty setting which provides us the best diplomatic model; tough but possible, with reasonable actors; we could set that as the highest difficulty and manually adjust the economics and troop stats to bring them in accordance with the original highest difficulty standards.

    If you have already looked at this option and incorporated it, bravo; I haven't been keeping track of developments of late. If you feel this would be too difficult to accomplish, well too bad, I want you to do it anyway and the customer is always right.

    I cannot express my excitement at the announcement of the upcoming release. This mod is, without doubt, the most captivating entertainment I have had the pleasure to enjoy, and I have sampled some of the best funded and longest running video games the industry has to offer. I just want you to know that I appreciate everything you have done and are doing.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    Quote Originally Posted by Wambat View Post
    @Aradan: I just wanted to remind you; considering the immanent release, and that it touches on the OP; of the suggestion sometime back that a workaround be developed, either in the main release or in an add-on to the release, which could combine the more sensible diplomacy of one of the lower difficulty levels with the challenges, both economic and battlefield, of the highest difficulty level. Just to refresh you on the argument: I, and I suspect others, cannot but play the hardest difficulty level as battles and production are simply far too easy at lower levels. Unfortunately, the original game designers considered that the best diplomacy model for the hardest difficulty was that everybody would declare war on you as soon as they were able, and would never accept peace even in the face total and immanent annihilation. Perhaps this is harder, in a way, but it is also quite boring, and practically removes diplomacy from the game, making diplomats rather useless.
    Difficulty level directly affects diplomacy?

  11. #11

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    Quote Originally Posted by acci_dent View Post
    Difficulty level directly affects diplomacy?
    Campaign difficulty level makes AI factions more aggressive and likely to gang up on the player. Medium difficulty's diplomacy is quite better.

    @ Wambat: Battle difficulty is not tied to campaign difficulty, so wrt battles, you can just crank the former to VH. As for the latter, we recommend Medium, which makes diplomacy much more balanced. As for the economic aspect of it (which is not very seriously affected by the difficulty setting anyway), we impose our own penalties on the player regardless of difficulty level selected, so you can freely choose Medium without having it too easy.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Explanation of Difficulty in DOM and the previous mods

    @Aradan: That is wonderful good news. I will try these recommended settings directly and see if they are to my taste.

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