Difficulty levels

[Javolenus]

Hi There. Great game! Played only one scenario: "Partisan". I played on "Normal" diff and won too easily, so I changed the setting to "Hard". Oh dear! Things swung to the other extreme and I lost badly. That's OK, except that I now no longer know how to win. What I means is, playing "Partisan" on "Hard" and the following things happened:

1. I deploy my German troops near tree-cover. As soon as I move one hex my rifle squad is destroyed by an enemy MG that has spotted it from the other side of the map and through several clumps of trees. Not a good start.
2. I move my second squad and they are hit by fire from--somewhere--and now they're pinned and ineffective.
3. But the enemy MG is in range of one of my squads and I have a 16% chance of hitting. I bump this up to 51% and let rip--but my squad misses.
4. I manage to get my other 2 squads towards the Objective, where they bump into enemy squads in woodland. I increase my hit chance to 72% and let rip--my squad misses and then gets annihilated.

And so I'm kind of at a loss: the enemy can see through trees and fire with extreme accuracy and effectiveness; my troops cannot see through trees and cannot hit a squad of enemy troops at point-blank range. Mmm, maybe go back to "Normal"?

[ioticus]

From the readme:

Game difficulty gives the AI a number of material advantages. Each level of difficulty above "Easy" gives computer controlled opponents:
- A 22.5% chance of having an additional unit for each starting or reinforcing unit it normally receives.
- 25% more CAPs per turn.
- 1 additional AP per unit above "Normal" difficulty.
- Increased chance of higher unit quality according to a non-linear formula.

So it's no wonder the game is much harder on Hard. Personally, I like to play on Easy because I don't like AI bonus cheats.

[JaguarUSF]

ORIGINAL: ioticus

From the readme:
- A 22.5% chance of having an additional unit for each starting or reinforcing unit it normally receives.

So on "Normal" the AI gets 1/4 more units than it should? That doesn't seem fair. No wonder I was overwhelmed the last game I played: the AI was getting more units! Seems like "easy" is actually a balanced game mode.

[tgb]

Hey, Jag

I don't think that's a big deal, considering that this is an Eastern Front game. The scenarios are all going to be pretty imbalanced as it is.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: JaguarUSF

ORIGINAL: ioticus

From the readme:
- A 22.5% chance of having an additional unit for each starting or reinforcing unit it normally receives.

So on "Normal" the AI gets 1/4 more units than it should? That doesn't seem fair. No wonder I was overwhelmed the last game I played: the AI was getting more units! Seems like "easy" is actually a balanced game mode.

A 22.5% chance of having one additional unit is different from getting 22.5% more units.

Regards,

- Erik

[JaguarUSF]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
A 22.5% chance of having one additional unit is different from getting 22.5% more units.

Regards,

- Erik

Well, it says 22.5% chance for one additional unit for each starting unit, so it is 22.5% more units.

[Javolenus]

Thanks for this. OK, I played the "Partisan" scenario again on "Hard" and did a bit better--but not much. Not only did the AI get more units, it was able to spot my units and destroy them in short order. Even when I bumped up my dice roll hit percentage to 71% my guys still missed. On top of that, I got hardly any option cards and all the unit commands (e.g. "Hide", "Dig in" etc.) were greyed out and unavailable. For me, playing on "Hard" is not fun -- not because I lose, but because I seem to have no option but to watch my guys get slotted. Will "retutrn to Normal" (although that's too easy ...)

[ericbabe]

It is 22.5% of an additional unit for each starting unit. Easy difficulty has no additional units. There is no change in hit rolls or option cards, and units commands are not grayed out on higher difficulty levels.

[tgb]

So you're saying that the difficulty level affects the roll of the dice? A 70% chance to hit is still a 30% chance to miss. That's why it's called "gambling". As often as I've missed with a 70% chance, I've hit with 16%. Aa for digging in and hiding, you know they are not always available to a unit no matter what difficulty level you are playing, right? "Digging in" (I assume you are referring to Hasty Defense) costs 7 AP, and you can only hide a unit if it's not in the LOS of any of the enemy (it usually has to be behind woods).

[raizer]

play monsters on normal with you as germans

[JaguarUSF]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

It is 22.5% of an additional unit for each starting unit.

OK....I think I get it now. So if the enemy has 4 starting units, there is a 90% chance of there being a 5th unit. And if the enemy has 10 units, there is a 225% chance of an 11th unit. But is there a maximum of one no matter how many units there are? Meaning, if there are 10 units and a 225% chance, could there be two to three units more beyond the initial 10?

[ioticus]

I would think the bonus APs and CAPS would make a bigger difference than a few additional units overall.

[raizer]

yah but for each xtra unit, you should bump up a cap-so you getting 2 for 1 there

[Lebatron]

Yes AI easy is pretty much basic scenario setup like you would have when playing head to head. Personally I would have thought normal would have been that setting. Anyway perhaps in time some modders will be able to create some pretty good unit scripts for their scenarios, and then playing on easy will feel more like a normal setting.

[tgb]

Just for the heck of it, I turned off FOW and started the Monsters scenario 12 times - 4 each on easy, normal, and hard. Here's the breakdown of units for the A.I.

Easy - 8/8/8/8 8 Avg.
Normal - 9/12/10/9 10 Avg.
Hard - 10/12/11/12 11 Avg.

I had no way of seeing how many CAP and cards the A.I. is given at each level. I suppose I could see that if I set up a hotseat game and played both sides. I may try that later if I have time.

[Lebatron]

Here's Monsters from the PDF of the board game. FYI.