Campaign Difficulty

[QuintusSertorius]

The AI only gets more money on Very Hard campaign difficulty. There every faction gets a hardcoded bonus of 10,000 mnai a turn.

Autoresolving is indeed badly skewed the further you get from Medium difficulty. Which is why naval battles on VH are a joke, since you can only autoresolve.

[Skandinav]

Sorry to ask, but are you sure that a money bonus is all there is to it ?
I remember the quote I spoke of as being much more extensive but it could be that the differences in battle difficulty were part of the description. A simple money bonus could of course affect most of what I listed above but I cannot help wondering why the AI maintains its passive role on medium difficulty even when, with my help, as ressourceful, or even more so than it would be in a hard game. I must also stress the fact that in my last campaign, which were on medium, the AI were near completely incapable of fielding strong armies despite its own finances and funding by the generous player - which were both regular and more than sufficient.

[Foot]

Money bonus, Aggressive AI, and auto calc difficulty increased are the known changes in VH and H (discounting the Money bonus).

Battle Difficulty adds stat bonuses to AI troops on the battlemap.

Foot

[mlc82]

Very Hard campaign difficulty makes the AI homicidally agressive, sharing a border means you WILL be attacked by them, no matter your relations to them, alliances, or etc. This is absolutely no fun at all IMO, and unless you want to be constantly fighting battles turn after turn, you'd probably want to use the "Force Diplomacy" minimod to enjoy this setting.

Hard is what I usually play on, the AI seems to do fine money wise (is able to field large armies, seems aggressive enough, tends to actually garrison its cities, etc) and is nowhere near as insanely agressive, although it still tends to be stubborn toward ceasefires.

No idea about medium.

Since you mentioned the Alex.exe, I've heard the Medium difficulty there IS supposed to be similar to harder settings in RTW/BI.exe. I'm using Alex now on Hard, and it's been fun so far. The AI is actually somewhat capable on the strategic map, is building large, balanced armies and actually combining them before attacking. Battle AI is still dumb as a brick, thanks to the hard coded limits of RTW.

[procopius1980]

Very Hard campaign difficulty makes the AI homicidally agressive, sharing a border means you WILL be attacked by them, no matter your relations to them, alliances, or etc. This is absolutely no fun at all IMO, and unless you want to be constantly fighting battles turn after turn, you'd probably want to use the "Force Diplomacy" minimod to enjoy this setting.

Hard is what I usually play on, the AI seems to do fine money wise (is able to field large armies, seems aggressive enough, tends to actually garrison its cities, etc) and is nowhere near as insanely agressive, although it still tends to be stubborn toward ceasefires.

No idea about medium.

Since you mentioned the Alex.exe, I've heard the Medium difficulty there IS supposed to be similar to harder settings in RTW/BI.exe. I'm using Alex now on Hard, and it's been fun so far. The AI is actually somewhat capable on the strategic map, is building large, balanced armies and actually combining them before attacking. Battle AI is still dumb as a brick, thanks to the hard coded limits of RTW.

I recall being told the same on MTW:II Total War's forums, but I've never heard anything like that for Rome.

In MTW:II, playing on very hard causes some of the strangest things to happen. It totally ruins your immersion when you have the Moors of Spain landing in Greece alongside the Sicilians. I've also seen the Moors land in England, and the Scots attack the French when playing VH campaign.

I was told to play on M for combat, but I seriously find it too easy to win in such circumstances. I don't care if the AI simply cheats, they need to cheat in order to stand a chance against me...