darqleo

Okay so I beat Age Of Mythology's Campaign mode, starting out on the EASY difficulty setting and, over the course of the campaign, moved up to HARD. I didn't try TITAN as HARD was about my level of difficulty where it wasn't too easy or too frustratingly impossible. Needless to say, the game was really fun. So I went into the Single Player/Random Map mode in hopes of getting some more single player gaming out of it before checking it out online.

Well, it's not fun anymore, it's frickin' hard! I left the difficulty setting on HARD but it feels more like IMPOSSIBLE. The enemy progresses way too fast and I end up running out of one of the resources (ran out of animals to slaughter/no fish in the lake/farming takes too long or I run out of trees or gold mines within my safety perimeter). I'm then sending out wave after wave of minions just to keep the enemy at bay until there are just too many of them and I end up being hammered to a bloody death once the elephants or siege machines start rolling in.

What the heck is going on? Why am I having such a difficult time now? Is the enemy A.I. better in this mode? Is my playing style too defensive and not enough offensive? Do I just suck?

Fine. I move it down to MODERATE and it ends up the same result except it takes a lot longer to get to that point. I was actually doing okay under one of my encampments got nailed by a Meteor Shower, causing me to retreat to my main base to and become crushed under the weight of an unending parade of elephants. GAH!

I really don't want to play EASY mode, maybe I'm spending too much time building my base camp up and making it look cool with walls and turrets and stuff instead of driving my minions across the map to conquest. Maybe I'm just really lame at strategy games and should stick to RPGs. Anyway, just ranting....

xmiyux

I'll actually totally agree with you on the skirmish mode thing. Easy is a total cakewalk - the AI a lot of time doesn't even build or harvest outside of its original encampment. Then you go one step up and many times they seriously stomp me into oblivion - huge armies in the second age that i have no clue how they could afford. The only time i can beat the AI on the 2nd tier is to be the Norse (Loki in oarticular) because they are so mobile, quick to expand, and good cheap units. If i try to play the relatively slow Egyptians - forget it.

I've noticed this problem with other games as well actually - it seems like the difficulty factor has worlds of difference between the easiest level and the next step up.

darqleo

Aw yeah, I beat 2 enemies in Moderate mode! I was on the map that has 1 main island and 2 small ones and I almost died at the beginning if it wasn't for me going to the mainland and making a 2nd settlement. I alternated between the 2 until for some reason the enemy left me alone (maybe they ran out of a resource or just thought I was dead. Anyway I quietly built my wood and food resources on one of the smaller islands without them attacking me except they always destroyed my Docks. The whole map was covered and the seas were patrolled. I was out of gold but had a ton of food and wood and I snuck a boat pass the patrols using fishing boats as decoys until I landed on the 2nd smaller island that had 2 gold mines. The enemy had abandoned the island, leaving only 2 unguarded settlements. I quietly built my gold there and to make an already long story short, I went into the Mythic age without the enemy bothering me and built up an army and one by one punked the enemies buildings as all the gold was used up on the map except for both of our Plentiful Gold myth power buildings (I ended up taking there's). DAMN WHAT A COMEBACK! :

CaptainMarvel

Heh. I've been through the exact same thing. It kind of made me feel like a wuss that I could get my ass kicked so badly on Moderate, but that's the way it works. I think I've only beaten the computer once on Moderate, and I was pretty good at AoE II and Empire Earth.

The Greeks are the worst to play against, IMO. For some reason, they're just really tough to repel. Beating back the Norse is the easiest, and the Egyptians aren't really too bad, unless they swarm you with elephants.

xmiyux

I always play against the Greeks and find them the easiest to beat. Then comes the Egyptians who always elephant swarm and irritate me. Finally the Norse i think are really difficult because they can rush so easily.