How do you modify the incomes in your single player experiences?
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I mean generally what percentage bonus incomes are given to enemy nations in AI compatible maps? Have you ever used them to test the balance of maps?
IIRC it ranges between 125%-150% depends on experiences.
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Moved to The War Club (assuming this is not a feature request).
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For a HardAI income bonus in my head it'd be something like...
100%= Easy difficulty
125%= Moderate difficulty
150%= Hard difficulty
175%= Very Hard difficulty
200%= Insane/Ironman whatever difficulty lolWith higher incomes the AI's goofs and purchasing snafus are less pronounced and it can sort of brut force its way into an alright challenge. The effect compounds over time, so there is more pressure on the player to move quickly with the higher income bonuses. When you get up to like twice the normal income the game usually becomes pretty challenging, and the player probably has to use exploits or meta off the AI's weaknesses to keep pace. I've mainly played with the hard AI in v5 where it performs reasonably well with an income boost. Like it works better per round I'd say over a giant bid at the outset. Also played with the hardAI in Iron War a fair bit, but in Iron War the income bonus also applies to resources which can throw it off a bit at the high end.
I think it'd be a cool idea for AI compatible maps to have a difficulty setting that provides something like that from the launch menu.
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@black_elk said in How do you modify the incomes in your single player experiences?:
I think it'd be a cool idea for AI compatible maps to have a difficulty setting that provides something like that from the launch menu.
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@black_elk I usually don't give a bonus but play only 1 country. When all countries are played by hard AI, you need to give major bonuses to affect the outcome (https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Balance_in_TripleA).
One problem is the over-purchasing of aircraft by the AI, which is actually worsened by income bonuses.
I would hesitate to use some specific% for difficulty.
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Yeah I could see that, since taking on AI teammates is also a way to handicap yourself. I think much depends on the scale of the map, like how many factions are involved, and also how long it takes the AI to complete a normal gameround, when you're only playing as a single faction among many. For example, in Iron War if you just play as Germany or Japan there can be a lot of down time between turns, compared to something like v5 where you'll be back up again pretty quickly.
It's also kind of curious for me to ponder what makes for a good/enjoyable experience playing against the HardAI in general, since it's never going to match PvP in terms of the challenge, even if you really juice the income bonuses. I think a big part of the appeal comes simply from that desire to paint the map you're own colors in new ways, or just to see a deep endgame situation that might be unlikely in PvP, where a human opponent would have already thrown in the towel a while ago lol.
Thinking about this stuff, I'm also reminded of other games that were primarily aimed at solo play vs the computer, and how they maintained engagement. Like say MTW 1, where you'd have stuff like Glorious Achievements (i.e. special victory conditions, where the player has to achieve specific goals within a certain timeframe for a given faction) or other randomizing events like rebellions or civils wars and such to mix things up on campaign. A&A style gameplay is of course a bit different than Total War, since the mechanics here are a lot more transparent. There's just not as much happening under the under the hood, to obfuscate what's going on with all that stuff. In a game like v5, giving the computer opponent starting tech advances can also work. You know like Japan starting with Super subs or shipyards or whatever, which is sorta Iron Blitz style I guess. Still I think stuff like special Victory Conditions, might worth exploring. In my view its better if the game/designer lays out some difficulty parameters or guidelines in the launch settings, since leaving it up to the player to invent a challenge for themselves ad hoc, is rather less satisfying somehow.
