Poll: scale the difficulty of each campaign

How do you define blitzing? In my makedonian campaign I managed to kill Epeiros and kick KH from greece in 269 b.c. Is that blitzing? D:

Here's my 2 Cents.

I liked the Hai campaign , not that hard if you blitz. Caucasian archers are godsent , slingers also . A close 3rd place are the scythian/sauro mercs. Also , phalanxes feel like cheating against AI..

Aedui are the hardest as i feel i need to migrate to Britain:))

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Originally Posted by seienchin

AS is in my opinion the easiest campain. You can have 10.000 profits in the first round.

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There's no way AS is easier than the Romani, Kart-Hadast, or Ptolies. To say it's a relatively easy campaign is accurate, once you get past the initial issues of crappy infrastructure, overstretched forces, and enemies in all directions, you have a huge empire with a huge amount of manpower and resources at your disposal. But I don't understand how it's easier than the Romans, Carthies, or Ptolies, all of whom start with good economies, safe starting positions, and few enemies. To some extent I'd even say that the Getai and Casse are both easier than the AS, simply because those are two factions where you can pretty much avoid war for years and take your time consolidating power. I'm also not sure how you made 10,000 in the first turn, did you not build any buildings or forces?

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Originally Posted by Revoltie

How do you define blitzing? In my makedonian campaign I managed to kill Epeiros and kick KH from greece in 269 b.c. Is that blitzing? D:

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Yes, that sounds like blitzing to me.

Damn. I always thought I wasn't a blitzer, that is pretty bad D:
But, well, if you loook into history, then Alexandros and Temudjin were the biggest blitzers ever xD

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Originally Posted by Revoltie

Damn. I always thought I wasn't a blitzer, that is pretty bad D:
But, well, if you loook into history, then Alexandros and Temudjin were the biggest blitzers ever xD

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That's only 'cause they used cheats.

"add_troop Pezheitaroi" as an example?
"add_unit Horse Archers" as another? :laugh4:

I know that Julius Barbaroi used cheats at pontos, he even bragged about it.

Actually, there is a well established opinion among the scientific community that he used the "move_character" cheat :book:

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There's no way AS is easier than the Romani, Kart-Hadast, or Ptolies.

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I can't speak for the Ptolemies, but AS is definitely easier than Kart-Hadast and Rome. Rome, as I mentioned earlier, is made difficult by the fact that you have a LOT of land to conquer and it becomes quite difficult to ferry your troops back and forth half-way across the map to retrain them. Kart-Hadast suffers, I think, from the fact that its troops aren't quite as robust as those of Rome (at least in my opinion). For the AS, if you can handle the issues of the first 20 turns, it becomes a cake-walk. That's why I think it's easy. It may be difficult in the first few years, but once you stabilize the economy, AS has a large population, a large stream of revenue, the most diverse troops of the game and some of the most powerful troops of the game. In short, it's a powerhouse. Rome and Kart-Hadast, by comparison, are easy in the first decade or so, but then become significantly more difficult once you start running into enemies overseas. -M

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Originally Posted by Mulceber

I can't speak for the Ptolemies, but AS is definitely easier than Kart-Hadast and Rome. Rome, as I mentioned earlier, is made difficult by the fact that you have a LOT of land to conquer and it becomes quite difficult to ferry your troops back and forth half-way across the map to retrain them. Kart-Hadast suffers, I think, from the fact that its troops aren't quite as robust as those of Rome (at least in my opinion). For the AS, if you can handle the issues of the first 20 turns, it becomes a cake-walk. That's why I think it's easy. It may be difficult in the first few years, but once you stabilize the economy, AS has a large population, a large stream of revenue, the most diverse troops of the game and some of the most powerful troops of the game. In short, it's a powerhouse. Rome and Kart-Hadast, by comparison, are easy in the first decade or so, but then become significantly more difficult once you start running into enemies overseas. -M

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Eh I guess I've never played far enough into a Roman or Carthaginian game, because I've always found them easy to the point of being uninteresting

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Originally Posted by Mulceber

Rome and Kart-Hadast, by comparison, are easy in the first decade or so, but then become significantly more difficult once you start running into enemies overseas. -M

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They become significantly more difficult? As Kart-Hadast you can easily conquer whole Iberia and then there is nothing that can stop you, because the roman AI isn't very expansionistic. Rome is maybe a little bit harder, but actually still easier then AS since the roman economy is strong, the infantry is very cost-effective and you can choose where to expand without fearing many enemys. But maybe I'm too good in playing EB to be objectiv.

That is why I use the Realist Movement Mod, the AI turns into a steamroller with it, in my Makedonia campaign, the Getai conquered all eastern europe up to Finland, the AS are total monsters and romans are expandin g like barbarians.

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Originally Posted by siegfriedfr

Hello,

Please rate the campaigns by order of difficulty and give your opinion on what could be done to make it more friendly to the average player.

From hardest to easiest:

1. Hayasdan
> possible fix: adding basic mines building in all caucasus city and upping population, making core relationship with seleucid "allies"
2. Saba
> adding basic mines building in meroe, tamane and carna, a fleetport in homna, making core relationships with seleucid/ptole "ally"
3. Saka
> not much to do, rush or die
4. Pahlava
> Adding mines in cities bordering the caspian sea, making the reformed parthian gov a lvl 1 native MIC
5. Sauromatae
> just like saka, not much to do

All the factions listed after that don't suffer any severe problem and would not require a tweak.

6. Pontus
7. Getai
8. Casse
9. Sweboz
10. Arverni
11. Aedui
12. Baktria

The easy factions:

13. Seleucid
14. Lusotanian
15. Greeks
16. Epirus
17. Macedon
18. Ptolemaioi
19. Carthage
20. Romani

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"Adding mine and ports"??? what's the point of choosing a hard faction if it's to make it filthy rich and easy to play! As if I'd use Sweboz and decide to add mines to every cities (amber and timber excavation) plus add population until all settelements become huge cities... real challenge... i could also put all their units at 2 HP... just in case it's still too hard

Maybe some people like realism ;)
Having a faction which is deep into bankruptcy by maintaining a small army, every rebell city in the game has, allthough you have 4, isnt really realistic and forces the player to exploit all the AI weakness.

Hmm, you do understand that in my previous post i was being totally sarcastic... do you?

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Originally Posted by seienchin

Maybe some people like realism ;)
Having a faction which is deep into bankruptcy by maintaining a small army, every rebell city in the game has, allthough you have 4, isnt really realistic and forces the player to exploit all the AI weakness.

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Small factions in this period never tended to be able to support large standing armies for long periods.

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Originally Posted by Duguntz

"Adding mine and ports"??? what's the point of choosing a hard faction if it's to make it filthy rich and easy to play! As if I'd use Sweboz and decide to add mines to every cities (amber and timber excavation) plus add population until all settelements become huge cities... real challenge... i could also put all their units at 2 HP... just in case it's still too hard

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I agree with you. Nothing should be done to make the game easier. All campaigns are playable on VH/M by a moderately competent player. Also, building things up from scratch is actually a major source of motivation for me to play the Swêboz.

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Originally Posted by Moros

Small factions in this period never tended to be able to support large standing armies for long periods.

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I think you misunderstood him. He wants smaller starting armies for some minor factions.

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Originally Posted by athanaric

I think you misunderstood him. He wants smaller starting armies for some minor factions.

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Actually, I don't think he's saying that. As far as I can tell, he's saying that it doesn't make sense for a 4 city small faction to be driven into debt by a small army the same size as the armies supported by single small rebel cities. So arguably he could be saying you need to reduce rebel garrisons for it to make sense, or increase the amount of forces a small faction can support.

Of course, I may be completely misinterpreting, so please tell me if I'm wrong, seiechen.

One musn't forget that while standing armies for smaller kingdoms, nations,... were small or not even existing (depending on the faction), armies for defense or for raised for short periods/campaigns could be big. It would be silly to give the eleutheroi very small armies, because in times of emergency they could levy large armies. Hence the way it is.

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Originally Posted by seienchin

Maybe some people like realism ;)
Having a faction which is deep into bankruptcy by maintaining a small army, every rebell city in the game has, allthough you have 4, isnt really realistic and forces the player to exploit all the AI weakness.

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The problem with realism and so-called roleplaying is that it is simply the wrong game - sure it is possible to replay some historic campaigns with some factions - but simply not with every faction, and it is good as it is - only way to prevent the dependance to blitzing AI factions is to delete the scripted AI armies, and to reduce the Eleutheroi stacks in their settlements to give the player a chance to expand by not invading bordering foreign empires.
For realism in this game there are simply too much possibilities and influences missing, and to be realistic (with a bit smiling) every king general or leader in ancient times would have used every chance to expand his riches and territory if he had a engine given chance to do so^^. But beeing serious again - there are simply to much restrictions by the engine especially the economy will simply prevent you from beeing able to play a realistic game with every faction. I would prefer a better playability and a much better economy as well as more influence on the economy but then i will have to play other games - some paradox titles are nice and challenging but are missing the tactical part - so i play total war+mods for the challenge to expand strategically on the campaign map and beating the ai in the field employing a variety of tactics - the more challenging both modes are the better is the taste of success - , in reality nobody wins with one unit heavy cav and 3 units HA against 400+ men (normal unit size), in rome/ EB you do and you have to when the AI invades your territory with stacks bought of scripted financial support otherwise the game says "game over" or " faction destroyed - btw ahistorical destroyed".

And I don't like the argument (saw it in other post where some came up with it) about giving nomads zero unit upkeep due to the fact that they didn't even know money or a kind of money based economy - money is just a placeholder for a worth measured by other objects of trade, and economy so in fact - even in a nomad culture the employment of a heavy armored well trained soldier+horse will have a certain impact on his nomad-community's economy - so the upkeep is just a placeholder for this impact....

maybe it is a good way to enhance the gameplay via reducing the support for AI factions and autonomous settlements' troops in regard to the difficulty chosen by the player if it is possible - so both parties will be able to play a EB which is giving them their favoured gaming experience - hobbyblitzkrieger who seek kind of a challenge and hobbyvirtualreenactors who are seeking a smoother but more realistic balancing of the factions....
hope i am not to offensive to the second group of players ^^ ...