Hard core submod for AE?

[danolf]

It would also be a bit more challenging to wait for growth before we can expand cities. that way we cant have alot of buildings straight away like in vanilla

[danolf]

It would also be a bit more challenging to wait for growth before we can expand cities like in vanilla. That way we cant have alot of buildings straight away

[danielahmed]

ye but once u past that it becomes easy im talking about how to make late game harder

[Imperial Guard]

Agree with this. Actual recruitment pools would go a long way to diversify the armies and make you care more for your elite troops. This mechanic is basically in the new games, but for mercenaries only. I wonder if Attila/Rome 2 modders have tried to fiddle with the mechanic.

my favorite mod for ROme II is called REM. in that mod the creator instead of using pools like the mercs he put caps on how many units you can recruit and from what population the units are recruited from are consumed EX Silver Shields Pikemen would come from the 1st class citizens, not only did you have to have the right buildings to unlock the possibility of recruiting the Silver Shields but you had to have the amount of manpower in that certain class of citizens in that given province in order to recruit said silver shield. this made units unique and personally i stopped real fast being reckless with my armies and elite units. to add to the citizen unit deal certain buildings had effects on the population growth of the different citizen classes which made you think even more on what to build to have growth fro certain classes.

a bit complex but i thought it was neat and added a whole new flavor to the game. steam rolling was a thing of the past because no longer could you recruit elite units outside your home country either. which in my mind makes sense. ex how are you going to recruit a Syrian phalanx pikemen when your in occupied Greece. you wouldn't.. you would be forced to replenish your men from home and that would take some time unless risk the chance on loosing too many men in a unit and its gone for good.

just my 2 cents on the whole pool recruitment idea.

[Erik Hammarstrom]

Hi again! Very happy to see this mod expanding the way it is! Recent updates has really improved gameplay!

I feel a bit bad for reopening this thread again, but I would once again like to inquire about the possibility of making a very tiny hardcore mod for AE? A strait up reversed softcore mod maybe? I dont think much is needed at all actually, a few tweeks on some values giving the AI more bonuses and/or more squalor and a lot less income for the player or which ever way that would work to make it more of a challenge!

Have been trying to play on legendary but it's not difficult enough and what's worse, when you get a CTD you can't go back to earlier saves.

[Swarbs]

Hi again! Very happy to see this mod expanding the way it is! Recent updates has really improved gameplay!

I feel a bit bad for reopening this thread again, but I would once again like to inquire about the possibility of making a very tiny hardcore mod for AE? A strait up reversed softcore mod maybe? I dont think much is needed at all actually, a few tweeks on some values giving the AI more bonuses and/or more squalor and a lot less income for the player or which ever way that would work to make it more of a challenge!

Have been trying to play on legendary but it's not difficult enough and what's worse, when you get a CTD you can't go back to earlier saves.

I'd support a hardcore mod. Although I'd argue it should be linked to the Imperium level - very small factions already have some inherent challenges, it's as you grow and start to expand that the game gets easier.

DEI does it very well imo - as your Imperium increases you get lower PO, higher maintenance (corruption), higher unit upkeep and various other penalties. That would be ideal for a hardcore mod of AE imo - at the moment Imperium only boosts corruption IIRC and doesn't have a major impact so larger empires become OP in the hands of the player. A harder difficulty curve with increasing Imperium level would be more hardcore, particularly for the civs like Rome, which can currently fight in Iberia, Africa, Gaul and Greece without too much trouble, even on VH difficulty.

Btw, I think legendary isn't any harder than VH? The only difference is you can't save, so more chance of losing the game if you get an inevitable CTD.

[Sheridan]

We've made major changes in this area for the next update. AI difficulty now scales properly from one level to another, as opposed to being identical to all levels like previously. Legendary boosts the AI significantly; normal has few to no effects. The AI behaviour is also changed. AI will now attack settlements more aggressively, it will also retreat rather than battling if it has a significantly smaller/weaker army. This also scales by difficulty - on hard, the AI will be more biased towards retreating when it has a slim chance of winning (surviving lol), going to nearby armies/settlements instead. Imperium now increases both unit upkeep and food demands, adding to the player's challenge as they expand.

I've changed some other AI priorities as well. It is now choosing night battles 20% of the time (only possible if the commander has 8 stars or more) on the field, and 25% of the time against cities. Before, the AI had virtually no tendency of these.

[Erik Hammarstrom]

I'd support a hardcore mod. Although I'd argue it should be linked to the Imperium level - very small factions already have some inherent challenges, it's as you grow and start to expand that the game gets easier.

DEI does it very well imo - as your Imperium increases you get lower PO, higher maintenance (corruption), higher unit upkeep and various other penalties. That would be ideal for a hardcore mod of AE imo - at the moment Imperium only boosts corruption IIRC and doesn't have a major impact so larger empires become OP in the hands of the player. A harder difficulty curve with increasing Imperium level would be more hardcore, particularly for the civs like Rome, which can currently fight in Iberia, Africa, Gaul and Greece without too much trouble, even on VH difficulty.

Btw, I think legendary isn't any harder than VH? The only difference is you can't save, so more chance of losing the game if you get an inevitable CTD.

I like your approach since you point out the main problem, everything gets easier and easier after 10-15 turns. Imperium level gives you more governors who's stats quickly get maxed out which eliminates the risk of uprisings and gives you a range of significant bonuses. Using imperium level for difficulty tweeks is a very good idea and a historically accurate one as well.

An additional thing could be to include harsh penalties for the most important tech advancements.
A big basket of bad apples when it comes to statesmen with more incompetence, slower stats progression, heavily reduced loyalty and children with traits beyond saving would also be most welcome.

An increased risk of betrayal with a few hundred percent would add a more dynamic feeling to the political power struggle within your faction.

[Erik Hammarstrom]

We've made major changes in this area for the next update. AI difficulty now scales properly from one level to another, as opposed to being identical to all levels like previously. Legendary boosts the AI significantly; normal has few to no effects. The AI behaviour is also changed. AI will now attack settlements more aggressively, it will also retreat rather than battling if it has a significantly smaller/weaker army. This also scales by difficulty - on hard, the AI will be more biased towards retreating when it has a slim chance of winning (surviving lol), going to nearby armies/settlements instead. Imperium now increases both unit upkeep and food demands, adding to the player's challenge as they expand.

I've changed some other AI priorities as well. It is now choosing night battles 20% of the time (only possible if the commander has 8 stars or more) on the field, and 25% of the time against cities. Before, the AI had virtually no tendency of these.

Thank you for the reply Sheridan, very interesting changes, im looking forward to test this after the next update!

[Sheridan]

In the new patch, AI bonuses scale with difficulty settings and they're generally much larger on hard and very hard than lower difficulties. Eliminated one if the bonuses that disproportionately favoured small factions (in a way that they'd often eliminate majors like Rome or Ptolemy). Hoping to see majors do better and the AI generally being more of a challenge on all difficulties above normal (normal bonuses were largely left unchanged)

[Walters1]

Damn - I'd love to watch you do a playthrough with Nabataeans on Legendary. You talk about getting through the initial unrest.. i've been finding this bloody challenging. Army Integrity gets me every time!

[Erik Hammarstrom]

Damn - I'd love to watch you do a playthrough with Nabataeans on Legendary. You talk about getting through the initial unrest.. i've been finding this bloody challenging. Army Integrity gets me every time!

Sure that could be fun, but I'd prefer very hard because of the trouble with saved games on legendary when it comes to crashes. My first campaign was with Pergamon which was a nightmare at first but it ended up being a very good lesson on AE game mechanics!

[KingTutEgy]

I do agree with Erik that the game gets easier after 15 turns but I find it problematic to grow my income as I expand. The maintenance costs become a problem as I upgrade buildings into higher tier, which makes the game fun because it forces me to calculate the maintenance cost. Also, whether it is worth it to build this building now or not. What I would like to see is a calculating AI that plays on its strength, for example, small factions should not be steamrolling big factions, I think they should be more inclined towards trading and fighting smaller factions. Also, they should jump on the opportunity attacking factions that are at war with multiple factions. For example, If I am playing as Egypt, I feel the factions in southern Egypt should attack me if I am not doing well against the Seleucid Empire. I think this is might be hard to do for the developers but I am thinking that AI should offer money to other AI factions to attack other factions. For example, the Seleucid paying Nabatae to aid them in the war against Egypt. I know that it already does this with human faction but if it is expanded to both human and IA then the game will much more interesting. Lastly, the problem with economy is the limited city and small cities slots that are allowed to be built. I am hoping that someone come up with a solution for this annoying issue.

[Petellius]

I like this idea, I think it should be doable.

[Swarbs]

We've made major changes in this area for the next update. AI difficulty now scales properly from one level to another, as opposed to being identical to all levels like previously. Legendary boosts the AI significantly; normal has few to no effects.

Does that mean legendary is now harder than VH? Would prefer them to be equal (and at the highest current setting) if possible. The crashes issue with legendary mean I never play that difficulty as it is just too frustrating to have it crash after winning several difficult battles in a single turn before the autosave kicks in.

[Swarbs]

Also, they should jump on the opportunity attacking factions that are at war with multiple factions.

I dunno - I think there is a risk this will increase the problems of large factions if not capped. If the Seleucids end up at war with Egypt and Bactria, for example, that could be a big problem if it results in all other small neighbouring factions jumping on them. The more factions that jump in, the quicker the AI is to pile on and thus it snowballs until they are attacked by everyone.

There would need to be some mechanic to limit how willing the AI was to end up in a huge one sided war with all factions DOWing on one large target.

[KingTutEgy]

I dunno - I think there is a risk this will increase the problems of large factions if not capped. If the Seleucids end up at war with Egypt and Bactria, for example, that could be a big problem if it results in all other small neighbouring factions jumping on them. The more factions that jump in, the quicker the AI is to pile on and thus it snowballs until they are attacked by everyone.

There would need to be some mechanic to limit how willing the AI was to end up in a huge one sided war with all factions DOWing on one large target.

I agree about capping it but as a way of testing it out before expanding it to all factions. I think neighboring factions should jump on the opportunity to expand or even demand money from any losing faction. I think it could be coded that if a faction is losing there would be a probability of others either attacking or demanding money. If there is concerns about AI attack everyone, I think the developers could try codding it to specific factions and players see how it goes. For example, If I am playing as Egypt and defeating the Seleucid, I would observe the neighboring factions behavior. There could be the possibility of making the Seleucid pay other factions to aid it in the war, whether it is winning or losing. This will add some sense of realism because Human player will be either inclined to have non-aggression pact with neighboring factions or it will force you protect the unprotected borders.