Hmm am wondering Grudge which patch you used and if that affected things....dunno just a thought, I always quickly upload the newest patch on any game I can find as Jab asked me which version Im playing and I said dunno the newest whichever that is lol.
Wondering if there was a slight change to her tactics in tha patch cuz on my computer she NEVER missies the fact I took Alexandria and pounds me with everything she can find the verbeal, 'kitchen sink'
...n tho even I can usually dig-in and weather her on-slaught pressing into Washington then is outta the question.
So I divised a bypass that I can hit Washington unmolested and pull the rug out from under her---I think the easy game, 'fix' is you dont loss as many morale points by losing your capitol....although these would have been big objectives to either side they were hardly an I-WIN-BUTTON as the game thinks to belive (I think cuz the designers are European and this is mostly a European concept but hardly American lol)
Hmm dont exactly remember the exact #'s but when Athena bowled me over when I was playing the north....think I had 70 morale points (dont remember) n had like 10
after she was finished with me.....I think it would be an easy coding change to cut that # in half to reflect a much more historicaly accurate picture of the moods of the country, n in fact it WASNT losing Richmond that convinced Lee to surrender, it was the fact his army had NO food, clothes, or amunitions to fight with as not only was Richmond gone but the Shannandoah area farmlands were burnt n no ammunitions productions out of Petersburg any more...as the south was literally devestated which is what it took, a southern victory would have almost needed to achieve the same or possibly wait for the civill unrest to corrupt the north?
Think my plan will possibly work on hard settings too (dunno havent tried it yet) because its not baised on any long-drawn-out plan n takes only like 10 turns (dont remember exactly) just remember I was assaulting Washington in late July or was it Early Augest depending on when I got the path clear....since my path plan is a low priorty area to her AI.
Even on hard settings you have a slight advantage in troop strength over Athena in the very beginning of the war, as the south, and need to use it to your fullest eka. taking out Washington since thats the I-WIN-BUTTON that it SHOULDNT be IMO
I want to mention even though I took Washington on normal, I am still having fun with the game as even though it says, I WON I view it as a bogus BS message cuz I really wouldnt have won squat lol and Athena is still got some fight left in her....I still cant keep her out of TN....she firmly holds Mo.....and the army of the Potomic n Hooker with a fulll stack is sitting in Baltimore ready to pounce on me if I leave the Washington area....so she is far from utterly destroyed, n my REAL goal of invading the Northern heartlands, (which is true victory lol) is still quite a few turns away
PS Oh yeah Grudge are you checking the boxes that make her smarter too?...I always check those in any game, my approach is the sme to any strategy game, play it on normal giving the AI as much time as it needs to consider its move///yeah gets a little boring some time waiting for it
(even with a high end system she needs time)
But, I dont like feltching a victory from an AI without giving it all the time it needs, the way you feltch your victory over dimwitted Athenna is making her think your not after anything important, she cant see the playing board like a real person, she only responds to threats and assesses priorties, n how your, 'tricking' her into thinking Alexandria is of low priorty is beyond me, cuz as dimwitted as she is shes never tottaly stupid and quite aggressive at responding to any of my advances.