MARK MURDOUGH
Legionary
posted 26 September 2007 16:41 EDT (US)
I constantly see people saying that on VH the enemy is able to send multiple full stacks of units a turn to attack.
Ever since starting playing on VH long ago I have never experienced anything like this.
Now are people grossly exaggerating when they say stuff like that? Maybe I play too aggressively and don't "sim city" the game and then finally make any troop movement 300 turns into the game?
nimbert
Legionary
posted 27 September 2007 18:55
EDT (US)
2 / 14
I have had a large Roman army attacked by three large (not full) stacks of Gauls during a single AI turn. The AI's third assault resulted in an heroic victory for my Romans.
MARK MURDOUGH
Legionary
posted 29 September 2007 19:20
EDT (US)
7 / 14
Well it could be misunderstanding on my part or other people exaggerating or having poor word choice.
Before ever playing VH I read posts by people who did, and I was under the impression that the AI had unlimited gold and full stacks would more or less spawn out of nowhere and attack you. You would be under constant attack by 3-4 new full stacks a turn.
It has never been that way at all when I play.
There are of course as you say severous some factions which are notorious for having many stacks, egyptians, romans if left unchecked, etc; but once you take out the stacks they already have it won't be until they create new ones that they will come. I was under the impression that you would literally be under constant attack all the time, and any armies you destroy would be shortly replaced; making the game and expansion near impossible unless you turtle and build up powerful forces.
Texray1
Legionary
posted 01 October 2007 12:06
EDT (US)
9 / 14
And then there are always those people who tend to highly exagerate what they have done. Sometimes you get a feel for them, sometimes not. I'm a very mediocre player so I don't really pay attention to a lot of the posts about really difficult scenarios. I know I'm not going to be playing those.
But years of experience on game forums give me a good BS meter that goes off on occasion.
theboyne
Legionary
posted 01 October 2007 15:50
EDT (US)
11 / 14
I've never felt guilty about using pause since in the real world, no real general has to micromanage his units to the extent that gamers do.
In reality he'd give orders to his sub-officers who would then run off and do them. Short pauses equate to more that one person doing a job.
Their pretty much compulsory if you have to deal with real life at the same time. I wouldn't trust the A.I. to fight the battle in my absence.
Krymzon74
Legionary
posted 02 October 2007 01:47
EDT (US)
13 / 14
I see full stack armies a lot in the games I play. This is admittedly due to my playstyle though, which was sort of defined by my first campaign with the Julii. I had attacked the Gauls of course, winning victory after victory all the way to Narbo Martius. I had been leaving behind a few odd hastati and town watch units as town garrisons figuring that my army had broken them and that they were all but done. Well then a full stack Gallic army shows up and pins my army in Narbo, a full stack German army shows up behind the lines at Masillia. I lose both towns, and subsequently everything else to the barbarians. (This is before I started to sally.) I was soundly defeated on my first campaign because after losing my "uber army" I couldn't train troops fast enough to stop the barbarian tide pouring over the mountains into northern italy. So as all gamers do I formed new strategies and tried again with much greater success.
Now when capturing a new city I start temple constructions and train six units of actual infantry for defense purposes while the army that took the city retrains and just sits there. This extra time I "waste" gives the ai ample opportunity to raise new armies and come at me again. However, I'm really good at seige warfare in this game so once an attack is broken, my counter-attack often wipes out an entire civ. I follow the cycle of rapid expansion, typically picking on one civ at a time with multiple seige armies and letting my other cities defend themselves against whatever's thrown at them. Followed by fortification and diplomacy/spying/assassinations/etc. With the ai's "kill the human" policy this strategy just works best to my strengths.
Anyway, my playstyle leaves me with tons of battle hardened troops who can hold the line against whatever is thrown at them. To me, a "seige general", it's just more fun that way.
BastWorshiper
Sensei
posted 02 October 2007 13:34
EDT (US)
14 / 14
I think the biggest issue is on VH campaign difficulty, the AI has enough money to purchase a new unit in every city every turn; so they are able to produce large armies more quickly than in lower difficulties. I usually only have problems with factions that own a lot of territory (Seleucids, Egyptians, Romans -- several turns in, Macedonians, Gauls, etc.)
In my Thracian campaign, I own most of Greece and over a period of about 3 turns, I had an army in the north that was attacked by 3 full-stack Julii armies and 2 full-stack Brutii armies. At the same time, I had an army in the south that was attacked by 4 full- or nearly-full-stack Scipii armies (three on the same turn).
However, once the armies are defeated, it will take the AI some time to recruit new armies. I don't believe they can produce more than one unit in any one city in a turn, and the new units are green except for any experience they get from temples, etc.
The large, highly-experienced armies you run into are armies that the AI used to conquer or defend against another AI faction. It is not unusual as let's say the Seleucids to find large silver- and gold-chevroned armies of Macedonia when you first come to blows with them, but this is because they have retrained the armies they used to massacre the Greeks and fight off the Brutii. They did not produce these armies already experienced and they built them up over time.