Why is Very Hard the recommended campaign difficulty?

I'm not entirely sure why this is the recommended setting. Is the game intentionally balanced for that? If so, why? To my mind it's an absolutely awful setting.

We get diplomacy that simply doesn't function. It's bad enough that it makes little sense as it is, but on VH the AI won't even willingly accept gifts or trivialities. It's as good as disabling diplomacy.

There's already a script which helps the AI with their economies, only on VH they automatically get an additional 10,000 mnai a turn. Which IMO aids bigger factions moreso than smaller ones, but worse than that it means stack after stack after stack of enemy troops. Which isn't "epic" after the third or fourth turn of fighting six battles every turn, just tedious. Even better, there's another script that replenishes their populations, so there's almost no cost to the AI recruiting near-endless numbers of troops.

Factor in the ridiculous AI diplomacy, and the way they all hate you regardless of what you've done, and it's contrary to a slower game since you spend your time defending yourself, or else conquering to end the repetitive stream of attacks.

Lastly, naval warfare is screwed up. Your fleets of quinquiremes can be sunk by AI transports and pirates.

Sure you get a "harder" game, but it's also one which doesn't make a lot of sense, historically or realistically. So why is it the recommended setting?

Rebels are aggressive at VH, meaning that your settlements will come under fire from not only AI factions, but also rebel armies as well (though apparently not the spawned ones, only the ones existing at the beginning of a campaign). Personally I prefer to play on Hard, and I don't think that VH has been an official recommended setting in any kind of play-tested way. We recommended purely on the basis of the aggressive rebels.

Foot

As far as diplomacy and naval warfare go, there's a solution for both:
- diplomacy can be helped by the Force Diplomacy mini-mod (stickied in the mini-mod subforum). Sure, it can be called cheating, but if you've beaten the enemy until they've got no army and 1 settlement left, normally they'd still refuse peace, whereas with the FD mod you can force the peace.
- for naval warfare I use the auto-win cheat when I'm sure of winning. When there's a 1 to 1 chance, I just auto calc. When I've got bad odds, then I just auto-calc too. It's just a matter of restricting yourself to some situations.

Because Foot feels particularily Bitey. (Jokes) I honestly don't know why though. VH is just Stupid in turms of sensibility. If you're on VH, you NEED FD, otherwise you will ie painfully, and bored.

Foot got that nick for his ability to keep everyone running around to finish EB sooner rather than having us sit around doing nothing but playing EB...

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

Foot got that nick for his ability to keep everyone running around to finish EB sooner rather than having us sit around doing nothing but playing EB...

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Oh, 1.0 was a crazy time...

Foot

So, ignoring the rebel AI, would you guys recommend Hard or Medium for the sake of being more realistic? I've been playing VH in EB since I got it a year or two ago, because that was the recommended setting. However, the 10,000 mnai a turn and the tendency of any faction next to you invading you are all getting annoying. Do I go Hard and hope that the diplomacy is reasonable as well as the diplomacy? Or do I go to Medium and hope that the game isn't too easy?

Try it out and you will find what suits you best.

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Originally Posted by bovi

Try it out and you will find what suits you best.

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But I require authority figures to tell me what difficulty to play at. :embarassed:

I demand you play hard difficulty :whip:

I'd recommend hard. The AI (rebels) will still besiege your towns, but they aren't as cutthroat as VH.

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Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius

Lastly, naval warfare is screwed up. Your fleets of quinquiremes can be sunk by AI transports and pirates.

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so true. I had the Egyptian equivelant of 2 quinquiremes(sp?) and 1 trireme and 2 penkonterioi vs 5 "lightly armed pirates" so I says to myself that this should be easy and auto resolve. Not only is it a defeat but a CLEAR DEFEAT. one of my quinquiremes and both my penkonterioi sank and the last 2 ships had like 10 men in them!

I never autoresolved since, even with 20 triarii vs 1 pontodapoi

Im going for "easy". You can autoresolve, diplomacy isnt spoiled but the ai factions still have huge amounts of money. If u want to reduce the much higher taxes on easy than on vh just play without very high taxes like me. Im using low taxes for my capitel, medium for other territories of my homelands and high for all and every city which doesnt belong to my culture. Only downside: the rebels dont do anything at all but thats a minor problem after all.

As far as I recall - but might, as usual, be completely wrong - the difficulty settings also have an impact on things like tax income and unrest.

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Originally Posted by Ecramer

But I require authority figures to tell me what difficulty to play at. :embarassed:

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Very Hard, it's the only way!

I mean it's a game, who wants it easy, relaxing, sensible, understandable? If your diplomatic hands arent tied behind your back and your not getting whipped around by 6-8 big, full stacks every turn then it just isnt worth it.

There's just something epic about having to hold a line against massive armies all while your other armies sweep around a weak point and destroy their flanks and weak homelands.

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Originally Posted by Ecramer

But I require authority figures to tell me what difficulty to play at. :embarassed:

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I say medium. Especially If you're playing the eastern factions, but other than that, I'd consider switching to Hard.

I've been playing "Hard" for a while now. The rebels are less active and the AI seems to be slightly broke every now and then, but besides that it seems ok...

I usually play medium, force of habit I supose.

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Originally Posted by BigTex

Very Hard, it's the only way!

I mean it's a game, who wants it easy, relaxing, sensible, understandable? If your diplomatic hands arent tied behind your back and your not getting whipped around by 6-8 big, full stacks every turn then it just isnt worth it.

There's just something epic about having to hold a line against massive armies all while your other armies sweep around a weak point and destroy their flanks and weak homelands.

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That sound boring and repetitive, not epic.

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Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius

That sound boring and repetitive, not epic.

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Signed, even on M/M campaign fatigue catches up, especially if the AI attacks over and over, in the end I just end up hitting "auto_win attacker\defender" because I can't be arsed fighting more then a couple times in a given game session unless its a full Stack vs full stack that might actually be epic.

I think i'll be playing on Hard next campaign. In my VH/M Pontos campaign, Seleucids are sending everything they have at me, in small groups, which gets annoying fast. I even take my family members out hunting for Seleucid FMs, since they all seem to hang around my border. Got 5 in one turn last night. I usually average 1/2, so thats a pretty good catch. Don't know where they're all coming from though.

My favorite factions pahlava nad romani
ı play with pahlava normally cos ı like cavalry dominance but M M is enough as AS never give up even in M M if ı do not play all battles it will clean my faction from history.

When I play with romani H M cos I can triple my field armies in comparison with pahlava

but I am sure that everybody has same idea on battle dif. shoul be medium for no bonuses both for ai and player

I may try pahlava in H M but even ı am tired of AS invasion armies more than 3 field armies even in medium setting.....

so with strong faction H M for weak faction m m looks like best setting....

i play on hard- its been working great for me! the KH and romani are sending stacks against me, and im having fun!

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Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius

That sound boring and repetitive, not epic.

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Different play styles I suppose. I find the struggle to force forward on a front against that fun. The fact that it is unrelenting forces you to find a way to end it faster. Either suing for peace, or finding a way to put an ally to cover the front, or managing the attack through somewhere undefended on their homelands. Never have found battle after big battle irritating, not being able to save sucks so there's always that extreme sense that screwing the last up means all the other's were for basicly nothing.

But to each his own. I grew up playing Sierra's Civil War, Blue and the Grey, couple of napoleaonic strategy games. The struggle of moving a front is what usually interests me. For that you sometimes have to bear through the constant repetition of the same attacks when you can't manage to find a way to move it.