Is late game too easy?

[Maist]

I'm playing with the Saxons on very hard difficulty and i'm about 250 turn into the game.
Huns are no more and i control most of the map. Quarter of the map is desolated and the other quarter is controlled by the AI which does nothing but to raid desolated areas although it can easily expend.
So at the end of the day i'm left to fight factions with 3 cities at most.

Is the game too easy/CAI too stupid or is it just me?

[Y@$!N]

Well if you've been utterly dominant then the endgame is just going to be that way, very simple procedural dismantling of any remaining enemies. I found that on very hard if I used diplomacy to give myself some breathing space and a decade or so, by the time I had to go to war I'd be in an extremely strong position.

[craziii]

kinda hard to design gameplay for when the player has control of 1/4 of the map. the only thing I can think of is for the AI to resettle more.

[Maist]

kinda hard to design gameplay for when the player has control of 1/4 of the map. the only thing I can think of is for the AI to resettle more.

Well i expected that until the player reaches that level the AI will have similar area of control.

[craziii]

Well i expected that until the player reaches that level the AI will have similar area of control.

ok, I think I understand what you want. you want there to be big ai empires that rival the players right? and you want this to be dynamic, not something hardcoded like the realm divide in shogun 2.

I want it also if ca can make it work. being dynamic may even allow 2 or 3 medium ai empires vs 1 big player empire. Lets be honest though, once the player has got a huge empire like yours, 1/4 of the map, the outcome is set in stone.

[Maist]

ok, I think I understand what you want. you want there to be big ai empires that rival the players right? and you want this to be dynamic, not something hardcoded like the realm divide in shogun 2.

I want it also if ca can make it work. being dynamic may even allow 2 or 3 medium ai empires vs 1 big player empire. Lets be honest though, once the player has got a huge empire like yours, 1/4 of the map, the outcome is set in stone.

I actually really loved the realm divide (at lest in FOTS). It made it so the map was split into two big parts which fought each other.

[koraygozu]

i play as geats and its quite hard for me actually ( im not great at strategies ) basically i started to invade the "mainland" and i have control of total 4 provinces (3 full last one has 1 settlement) and any faction that has borders with me has 3 allies and declaring war just makes me vulnerable because i have so much enemies im just surrounded with like 6 20 stack armies. 1 on 1 i can take 40 units with 20 but getting flanked totally ruins me so i just guard my border settlements and try to save up for more armies so i can defend and attack at the same time. in rome 2 you could just go full attack and AI was very passive now whenever they see a hole in my defences the just come and raze my settlements which i spent so many money on. so i just attack with agents and try to break alliances but nobody ever agrees unless im about the end them .i think its actually harder this time not much but you need to plan ahead.also its more every land i have is infertile so no bonus food or income for me that totally sucks . and its hard to conquer when every 1 in 3 settlement is razed and you need to spend 10 turns until you can move on.so yeah thats my campaign

[Debe2233]

I suggest trying to piss off the Sassanids. I settled in Northern Italy as the Alans. Sometime later one of the Sassanids vassels declared war on me, no idea why, they are no where near me. 7 turns later I see several fleets heading in my direction.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=409548967

Currently there are 6 armies and 1 fleet heading towards Italy. I know for a fact there are at "least" 4 other armies/fleets on their way, and that's not including the wave of ing enemy agents. Basically for some reason the whole of the East has declared me public enemy number, upped sticks and decided to, jointly, come kick my head in. I'm in two minds whether I should give up on this game... this just seem's so... stupid.

[koraygozu]

yes i have that stuff too. i dont know why but picts declared war on me (im geats) and i havent done anything to piss them off. they had 1 stack army and last time i checked it was on its way to my lands . but it never arrived(its been like 30 turns) i still have a army pinned to guard my south west borders. also happened with some germanic faction. all his allies declared war on me but nobody ever attacked me . after like 20 turns all of them offered money for peace . this also happened with some other factions that is on very up north of the map. they just stacked lots of armies on my borders and fortified their position until i picked them of and signed peace.

[Mountain_Commander]

Factions need to settle more and try to build an empire. Without them doing that there are a ton of abandoned provinces the player tediously colonizes and it gets very redundant. Late game there should be a couple big empires to go at it with.

On paper it sounds great the enemy razes and migrates, but in game it isn't so fun when so many provinces are abandoned and there's no big threats to fight late game.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

For me late game is boring not because of difficulty but because or repetitiveness.

Usually a campaign is engaging in the beggining even if it's not hard, but it loses it's appeal later due to lack of depth in management.

I know that's the case with all TW titles to date though, I'd prefer if the game while maintaining the real time battles had a much more complicated management side on the campaign map when it comes to the provinces and not just min/maxing public order so you can move on to a new province and do the same.

For example setting trade routes between your own provinces, governors and characters having some sort of reputation system much like the diplomatic reputation between factions, taxation being more in depth...