Game too easy? Yeah right.

[Quickening]

I can't believe the number of people who say this game is too easy. Surely they must play it on Easy or Normal.
Im playing a French campaign on Very Hard/Very Hard and Im getting my arse kicked majorly. The Scots, English, HRE and even bloody Sicily are all coming at me with everything they've got. Doesn't help that the Pope tells me to stop attacking them as though to give them the advantage. In fairness he does excommunicate them when they attack me but by then Ive lost a city havent I? Bastard.

Not just this game either. My last English campaign on Very Hard/Very Hard was nails when the Scots, French and Danes were banging down the door. But when Portugal landed a full stack in Ireland and attacked Dublin I just gave up.

Im far from a bad player. Dammit strategy is my genre. How anyone can say that Medieval 2 without mods on Very Hard/Very Hard is too easy is just beyond me. It's hard as hell.

I only completed one campaign and that was only because I went the Scots who start in a nice corner of the map. Even then it was a short campaign and I only had like five turns left by time I finished it and I only succeeded by taking some regions from the hapless natives of the Carribean.

:wall: :furious3:

Sorry, Im in a bad mood today and I had to vent. BUT IT'S STILL TRUE!!!

EDIT: Language ~sapi

[Von Nanega]

I hear you! I played the English, and thought all was well when I picked off the french. But then Milan, HRE, the Danish and everybody else decided I was meat for their dogs. It was hard and interesting game and I enjoyed it hugely.

[Quickening]

I do love a challenge. It's just frustrating fighting through it :laugh4:

But something great has happened in this game. Early on I got an alliance offer from Hungary for no apparent reason. I accepted thinking "why not?".
Many years later the Pope launched a Crusade against Jerusalem and by pure chance both Hungary and myself arrived there at the same time. They lay siege to the city and I joined them and together we took the place.
They got it since they attacked first but that didn't bother me. I then used my ex-Crusading army to take some of the neighbouring regions. Basically securing the East for myself and my ally :laugh4: Great stuff!

JUST AS WELL TO SINCE IM GETTING DESTROYED IN EUROPE :furious3:

:laugh4:

[edyzmedieval]

You serious? Milan attacked my Bologna, 1300 vs 850, and they got beaten soundly... I even managed to keep 350 men, and they barely got away with 100, and with 700 made prisoners.

This is with HRE, about 1235, and on VH/VH.

So please, this is easy.

NOTE: I am very low with cash, having about -30000 per turn, but I still have top notch units, and I attack constantly.

[Quickening]

You serious? Milan attacked my Bologna, 1300 vs 850, and they got beaten soundly... I even managed to keep 350 men, and they barely got away with 100, and with 700 made prisoners.

This is with HRE, about 1235, and on VH/VH.

So please, this is easy.

NOTE: I am very low with cash, having about -30000 per turn, but I still have top notch units, and I attack constantly.

I don't know about the HRE. I don't like their scattered beginnings so I don't play as them. How do you find the French on VH/VH?


EDIT: Another thing, I may be making life harder for myself a bit since I always set taxes to low and release all prisoners. Im trying to honourable in short.

[edyzmedieval]

Ah, then this might be it. I made alliances at the start with everyone, and the AI was smart enough not to attack me. I concentrated on developing Frankfurt and Nuremberg to the extreme. I quickly took Magdeburg, Stettin and Prague, and this proved very useful. After a brief war, I took Hamburg too, and luckily, Antwerp and Bruges. Innsbruck and Staufen have been upgraded, and after that, Bern and Metz have been conquered.

When I fight, I ALWAYS execute the prisoners, and I set taxes as high as I am allowed too, without the fear of a rebellion.

I haven't fought the French because Milan, Venice and Sicily are a constant threat. They attack me with stacks and stacks, but I always repell and destroy their armies when they come to take my cities by force.

[RickooClan]

I played on VH/VH with France as well and honestly i think it is easy[at least not difficult], especially you could hardly lost a battle with the current battling AI.

Plus, i apply these iron men rules on my game:

1. You can only recruit troops or build if you have a general in province.
2. You can NEVER adopt any generals, all of them must be royal blood.
3. Only General can leading an army to attack other city/army.
4. You can NEVER attack another Catholic faction unless they attack you first.
5. NEVER get your kingdom excommunicated.
6. NEVER reload the game for your favor.

:2thumbsup:

[Quickening]

.
3. Only General can leading an army to attack other city/army.
4. You can NEVER attack another Catholic faction unless they attack you first.
5. NEVER get your kingdom excommunicated.
6. NEVER reload the game for your favor.

:2thumbsup:

Yeah I adhere to all these to. Especially the last one since it's blatant cheating.

[edyzmedieval]

I've never ever used the last one in M2TW. It demonstrates that the game is very manageable.

[HoreTore]

Well, the thing is, you just haven't cracked the game yet. For those of us who have, it's easy. The problem with the difficulty in the game, is that the upper limit isn't high enough.

Compare it to Civ4. The higher difficulties are simply insane there. It's not in this game. You only have to crack a TW game once, as the difficulties are so similar. In Civ4 however, you have to crack each difficulty level, as you have to apply a completely different strategy when you bump up the difficulty a level. A good example of this, is that even a complete newbie can start at the highest difficulty in this game. You don't have to fight your way up the difficulties like you have to in other games. And once you crack that difficulty, there isn't more challenge to it, unless you mod the game to make it harder(which I have).

[FactionHeir]

Well, the thing is, you just haven't cracked the game yet. For those of us who have, it's easy. The problem with the difficulty in the game, is that the upper limit isn't high enough.

Compare it to Civ4. The higher difficulties are simply insane there. It's not in this game. You only have to crack a TW game once, as the difficulties are so similar. In Civ4 however, you have to crack each difficulty level, as you have to apply a completely different strategy when you bump up the difficulty a level. A good example of this, is that even a complete newbie can start at the highest difficulty in this game. You don't have to fight your way up the difficulties like you have to in other games. And once you crack that difficulty, there isn't more challenge to it, unless you mod the game to make it harder(which I have).

Pretty much what he said. Except for the civ4 part. I don't play that :D

[edyzmedieval]

I quit CIV because they smacked me waaay too hard. :P
Although I loved some things like the nuclear rocket. :grin:

[Quickening]

Thing is though, the Civ games cheat to the max on higher difficulties and they don't even try to hide it. Med 2 does not, or so CA say. Must be much harder to make a game difficult when the AI is always on a level playing field.

But that... is another topic.

[HoreTore]

Well, I play Civ4 for the challenge, and I play M2TW for the looks and "coolness"... Although I've made the game a lot harder by tweaking the files...

I just wish they could include an higher difficulty level, with basically the only change is that the AI gets insane bonuses in battle mode. Like +5-8 attack, defense and missile attack. That would make things a lot harder. The AI doesn't have to be smart at all when they have supermen fighting for them.

EDIT: I do wonder, was it a coincidence that the shuffle on winamp chose to play Guns n Roses - It's so easy as I wrote this?

[Quickening]

I just wish they could include an higher difficulty level, with basically the only change is that the AI gets insane bonuses in battle mode. Like +5-8 attack, defense and missile attack. That would make things a lot harder. The AI doesn't have to be smart at all when they have supermen fighting for them.

For some reason that reminded me of Streets of Rage 2 for the Megadrive/Genesis. That had a secret "Manic mode" which was just insanely hard.

Yeah, that would be a good idea. Not for me though :p

[FactionHeir]

You could set them to get more money per turn (I think I posted a topic on that somewhere) or simply start with higher level buildings (the ones further away from your starting position of course). Or modify the units they or you start with.

[HoreTore]

Yeah, I did that after reading your post about it. Made things better, but I still want my superman enemies...:whip:

[FactionHeir]

Well in that case duplicate a few entries in the unit file and make those new units only available to the faction you are not playing and the original only available to your faction. Then make similar amends in the buildings file.

Its very tedious though. You probably could write a program to do that for you but I wouldn't know how to.

[Shahed]

Yeah, I did that after reading your post about it. Made things better, but I still want my superman enemies...:whip:

DO you have link handy ?

[FactionHeir]

DO you have link handy ?

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=82786

Are you trying to get me to achieve my 1000th post today or what? :p

[rvg]

Maybe it all depends on a faction. I usually play on VH/H, sometimes on VH/VH. Both the Byzantines and the Venetians are ridiculously easy, but at the same time I struggle when playing as Portugal.

[Brutal DLX]

While I can win on VH I do not enjoy it. Playing on such level just increases stress for me, not enjoyment or challenge (it's no challenge if you know you can do it, just with more of an effort to get basically the same result). I just want a relaxing, fun campaign and as I'm not a rusher anyway, I'll eventually face nice AI armies, shame the tactical AI is bad at any difficulty level.. so I usually play on H/H so that alliances have at least a chance to work.

[edyzmedieval]

Multiplayer is basically the challenge you need. If the player is smarter than the AI... :grin:

[Quickening]

Multiplayer is basically the challenge you need. If the player is smarter than the AI... :grin:

Nah my real life Total War opponents are rubbish :no:

[Quickening]

Sigh. There's another campaign abandoned. The Moors attacked me as well. :furious3:

[Monarch]

Nah my real life Total War opponents are rubbish :no:

Try going into the gamespy lobby. The battle AI for Medi2 is abysmal, if it was good then the campaign would be awesome.

[Quickening]

Try going into the gamespy lobby. The battle AI for Medi2 is abysmal, if it was good then the campaign would be awesome.

Ive tried but they are mostly 2 vs 2 games. I just want a one on one battle.

[TevashSzat]

In RTW, some of the ai was given a clear advantage like in the battlefield they would have attack modifiers so their cav would do near impossible things such as charge straight onto a unit of hoplites in their spear formation and still not die

[TB666]

Well the game was way too easy with 1.0 and 1.1 mainly because of the passive AI.
On the campaign map it did ok but once it got on the battlefield it didn't stand a chance.
However with 1.2 the game is alot tougher mainly because it is not longer passive and is trying to win.
It has really change the game atleast in IMO.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Well the game was way too easy with 1.0 and 1.1 mainly because of the passive AI.
On the campaign map it did ok but once it got on the battlefield it didn't stand a chance.
However with 1.2 the game is alot tougher mainly because it is not longer passive and is trying to win.
It has really change the game atleast in IMO.

Its also a lot harder now to keep on the good side of the pope playing VH at least :2thumbsup:

Too bad the AI is still passive.

[sableblack]

back to the original poster.
i too play vh/vh (played h/h once as england to open factions). i have not yet moved from vanilla.
i have won as hre, byzantium, moors and now doing well with poland.
key to my success is.
1. contact everyone possible early and trade map, trade rights and alliance for cash. when you are not at war your alliance is worth something when you are at war with everyone your alliance costs them so they don't want it.
2. my poland game has been aised by early on occupying not sacking and releasing prisoners. my generals got great chiv for rapid city growth and easy order maintence. also my rep went to v reliable.
3. when i was attacked i countered rabidly taking several regions quickly then threatening one more. i then exchanged ceasefire for the region under attack which they were happy to give me (have received 4 regions for ceasefire from various opponents never had this in earleir wins as rep was appaling from sack/ exterminate/ execute)
4. quick wars then resell trade rights and alliance. then someone else attacks i take a couple of quick bites at their empire and then peace. thus not yet in multifront war and so peace is easy.
5. heroic victories must be the normal outcome when in outdoor battle with odds of 2:1 against. keep their losses high and yours low.
6. attack poorly defended cities first and leave the full stack city to last as too many casulties will cost you as much as them.
7. if they have a stack that can reinforce a city (ie i square from city) then attack that one. the city defenders will come on as reinforcements. kill outside stack before reinforcements arrive then eradicate the city defendors. do not allow any to flee esp the general. then execute prisoners (the only time i ever do this). then walk into unoccupied city.
8. try to border as few factions as possible.
9 if you need a faction to attack you on vh/vh then walk armies accross their land. shorten bordere don't lengthen.
10 if you must weaken you european holdings my sending your troops to thew holy land then sell your new settlement and leave. this is not shorteneing your borders. sell to a faction who doesn't normally live in that area as then they will get involved in weird wars with factions far far away.
11 rebel armies in your regions can be killed if convenient but don't let them distract you. train on them when not at war but they are harmless compared to milan who is planning on actually attcking your towns. (well they just tried but as after war with france i bordered them i accidebtly wandered all my troops to the bordrers abd took out 3 of their four regions as soon as they declared war. (3 turns). am now clearing up the stacks they sent the other way into my territory which i ignored as my border towns have 6-8 units in them. more than enough to survive an assault.)
12 most importantly learn the strong units for your faction and use them well. if your faction is weak in an area make few of this unit type.
13 learn to use priests, spys and merchants. less unrest, open gates and more money are your rewards. keep yoyr faction heir single and diplomats talking to a princess will allow marriage alliance. some people like assasins but my view is that buildings in enemy settlements will soon be mine. why would i damage my own property. i have never killed anyone with assasin (not even tried)
14 if you don't know where an attack will come from next stacks moving towrds and into your regions are a clue.
in summary diplomacy works when you learn how to use it as do merchants and cavalry charges. also killing routers is easier than fighting them. fight morale not men
hope this helps.

[RickooClan]

Just one suggestion as i always siege a settlement rather than waiting it out, especially in the beginning turns of the game.

I have read some guides which suggesting saving your troops by sitting out the siege but honestly i think that is a very bad move. The reasons are:

1. Siege battle is the best place to clear out your low-tech troops such as militia which could give room to maintain better troops.

2. Each settlement at least give you 700 forin per turn which could recruit 2~3 low tech troops. Lets say you sit for 5 turns on a sieging a settlement you actually lost 4~5k forin potential income. By comparing the cost of the troops you may lost in battle, it does not worth it. [You will only lost 40~100 militia men in early game by taking a settlement even on VH/VH, and they only cost around 700 forin.]

3. Sitting on siege is a waste of your army force, especially for France you have lots of bother to defend.

4. Time is important, the faster to take the settlement, the quicker you establish your power and develop your faction. At least this is true for France.

5. Surely, you should not waste your expensive calvary in any siege battle at all. Normally infantry, archer, siege equipment and your general unit can get the job done nicely.

:beam:

[Boyar Karhunkynsi]

I started playing on M/M in the beginning, just to get a feel for the game and it's features. I finished a few games and wanted a challenge. I then started playing VH/VH and found it didn't change much; the pope hates you more and you get attacked/sieged more frequently. No big deal. It doesn't appear to change much in the way of AI being any more treacherous or much of anything for that matter. AI armies are still useless, regardless of their superior units. Thus, it is considerably harder to destroy a faction and marginally more difficult to fight a respectable war with one. No biggie.

There will be no truly difficult settings until AI is improved, which may be some years off until we see fruit of this endeavor which so many developers claim to have improved (yeah right, mate).

I love saying my two cents worth. :2thumbsup:

Regards,
Max

[edyzmedieval]

Having knights in sieges, when YOU are besieged, it's a blessing. They mop with the enemy units in those small places. They die, but they kill at least 150-200 before they are wiped out. A unit of 40 Mailed Knights will do the job very well.

[tex_-]

If you are catholic faction, try to make alliance with pope as soon as possible. This will give you some advantage vs other catholic factions. Also trade rights and using right agents at right time can make start a lot easier.

[Richard The Tiger Heart]

I had some difficulties too in the begining of the game (playing as the english to unlock other factions). The scots and french attacking me from both sides made the situation pretty nasty. I remember assaulting Iverness with just a pair of catapults as my siege equipment and they destroyed them with flaming arrows (yeah, i got the catapults quite near the walls to avoid wasting ammo). My armies in Normandy werent obviously able to stop the French also.

After 3 failed english campaigns on H/H I decided to apply a mod to correct some of the bugs. I choose Lands to Conquer. At my 2nd try, I finnally met success.:laugh4:

Crushed the scots, smashed the French and erradicated the Portuguese. Now Im moving in on Spain...just two more regions to get them out of Iberia.:2thumbsup:

Really the English are the supreme unmounted archers. 1/3 of my armies are longbowmen and I just got the Yomen ones. Pretty neat. AI armies that use low armored units are met with an empressive rain of arrows. The wooden stacks force the enemy cavalry to flank, thus making the AI moves even more predictable. The spanish and portuguese use Jinetes, which are incredibly powerful for light cavalry (yes, on melee) but they just cant resist my arrow storms.:laugh4:

I made alliances with the Italians and Germans, thus I only fight in one direction.:2thumbsup:

About diplomacy: I have a very untrusthworty rep and Im always being excommunicated. But I dont care, coz both the Italians and the Germans dont like the Pope as well. :idea2:

[HoreTore]

IMO, a strong cavalry wing is crucial to a siege. The way I almost always assault cities, is to have 5 cavalry on the left gate, 5 on the right and 10 infantry at the front. Spy opens the gates, and everyone rush to the gates. The cavalry speed is the important thing here, they don't have to kill anything at all. They both rush to the center, fighting any stranded units if they wish. This makes the enemy pull back to fight them, and can then be killed off by the infantry as they try to run past them in the streets. The cavalry mop up the usually small center units, then charge out at isolated units. Works like a charm, and almost always gives better results than autocalc.

[steev]

I was just playing a game as England on VH/VH, with all battles on auto-resolve. It was going ok but then around turn 50, by which time I had taken Bruge, Antwerp, and most of France except Dijon, Marseilles, Toulouse, it started getting horribly nasty. I had two Danish stacks heading for Antwerp, a full French stack heading for Angers, and hordes of Milanese spewing up from Dijon towards Rheims and Paris. And the Portuguese are dominant in Iberia and sending a stack to Bordeaux. If I fought the battles on screen it wouldnt be a problem, but with auto-resolve all victories are Pyrhhic unless you have 3:1 or better odds. I gave up as I didnt fancy the headache - right now i'm trying to play a campaign that lasts more than 150 turns so i can fight the Timurids and go see the New World. But I think I'd lose even if I tried with this one. So if your game is too easy just auto-resolve a string of battles to ruin your armies.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

As an experiment I played blitz as HRE (VH/VH):
moved all my troops south by turn 3 wiped out venetians as faction (they left their faction heir on venice bridge and faction leader in venice all alone - that's right 2 units only as they blockaded my port),
milanese were gone by turn 6.
By turn 20 i own all the italian lands (since the sicilians sent both faction heir and leader and full stack against me on a single ship manned by 8 men), the 2islands south, valencia (gave old El sid hell with 6 ballistas) and have moved my border south to innsbruck/bern/vienna I gifted all the lands north of there to pope which basically secures my northern border forever. I am swimming in cash and since my faction leader has both the farmer traits and architect retinue and 10 chivalry I managed to get bologna to 9000 pop (castle) so i can soon churn out Zweihanders/ Imperial Knights while my opposition is sending out spear militia armies. No one attacks me cos my garrison are scary.
I broke treaties, alliances, ransomed everything and demanded max payment for anything from everyone. I sent every priest i made to africa so now i own half the Cardinal college.
For me this campaign is over and has been boring like hell. I exploited all the well known AI flaws and didn't play in the "spirit of the age": so the only person to blame is myself. Playing as chivalrous decent honorable faction is VERY difficult on VH/VH and so much more fun. Yes the game can be beat easy but I can not see why it has to be since the idea is to get the maximum enjoyment out of your purchase.

[King of Kings]

I no what you mean its really hard thats why i just play on M/M

[Razor1952]

I would have to agree that a competent player will always easily win at whatever level even with iron man type rules. And I believe that is particularly because the ai doesn't concentrate enough on building its economy.

I have however started a variant thanks to Epistolary Richards advance x years find, of playing from the weakest faction from turn ~100. In the current scenario I just started at turn ~100 as Byzantium (it has only Nicaea and not that well developed locked in against Venice. Venice has 8 provinces and one of the leading factions.) Somehow I think my Waterloo might just be around the corner.

One thing I have observed that after ~100 turns most ai cities are still poorly developed and the even the most basic land improvements have not been made.
I'm frankly surprised the ai hasn't concentrated more on economy first, after all that I believe is the key human strategy.

[Bob the Insane]

It is an interesting topic...

I am playing a 1.02 (leaked) game as the HRE at the moment on H/VH and I saw this and I though, no way is it easy... Here I am fending off attacks from the Danes and the Poles, single handedly trying to stop the Mongols from wiping out the Egyptians and taking the entire middle east, fighting the Byz for control of the easter med islands and wiping out the heretically Millanese (already done that to the evil backstabbing venetians)...

Provided i bring appropriate forces to the battlefield I most win the battles and I am even capabale of pulling the occasional heroic vistory out of the bag...

Strategic level is where things are more challenging i think, ensuring cash is spent right, ensuring the right sorts of troops are in the right place at the right time...

Tactically challenges come from not having the right troops and just making do with what it there...

I have to agree with two balanced armies even on VH battles the AI barely stands a chance...

Back to my example at the top, despite all that (and possibly because) the HRE is the largest and richest empire with only the Mongol as more powerful. So I can't be having too hard a game...

I have to admit though I never rush. It is not a specific decision as such, I guess I lack the RTS warrior instinct as i manly play RPGs and (of all things ) FPS's (outside TW)... I don't play many RTS's often because of the sheer degree of agressive fastpaced play required at the start of the game to be in a tenable situation later on... Sounds too much like hard work to me... :laugh4: