Regarding Difficulty level...

[Dogukan]

I also need help about this.
I started a roman campaign on vh/h and took over Spain-Italy-south of Gaul-sicialy and whole Greece to Byzantion. It was FUN!
But I was very unsuccesfull against Northern Barbarian, they always had the advantage on melee.

So I decided to start another campaign as Makedons on H/M...I kicked Greeks out in 4 turns and finised Epirus by the end of 20 or so...and got to say it wasn't fun at all. I never won battles like these in vh/h with Romans. I hope it is because of the phalanx success or I will quit that campaign.

I'm thinking of palying on either vh/m or h/h but can't decide. h/m was too easy or it was because I bliztkrieged Epirus and Hellenes.

[QuintusSertorius]

Blitzkrieg is even more successful as a tactic when you're not playing on VH, because it's much harder for the AI factions to replenish their armies.

[Valion]

Well i decided to play on Vh/M after reading through this... Vh campaign difficulty so that the AI doesnt get depleted of resources everytime i crush it's armies and M battle difficulty for even grounds in stats.

Thanks again guys now i can start a fresh game i can micro on.

EDIT:
Wow i just routed a Epeiros army of 945 with my own of 665 at M battle difficulty with only 33 casualties o.O This is a huge change from my normal experiences in Vh seing they routed easier when they get surrounded or charged at and taking huge cassualties. it makes some more sense now seing what just happened to them always happens to my men in Vh when in the same situation. Also i noticed they weren't as hard as bricks to kill Lol.

I feel like there wasn't any effort in the battle since all i had to do was use terrain advantage and kill his general with my slingers Lol.

Well maybe the barbarians in the north will dice my armies into pieces and make me actually plan my battle^_^

[seriousbusiness]

VH/M here. When I played VH/VH I had to watch helpless as inexperienced liby-phonecians and low-level arverni troops routed experienced principes in battles I fought very well, but it just wasn't enough. Obviously it was unfair and not fun, so I started again on Hard but it was still tedious winning large battles. Medium is the only fair way to play an EB campaign IMO because otherwise even if you are committing your entire forces in a battle you will take silly losses that you shouldn't have in anything near a realistic simulation. Plus, having fun is the whole point, surely? There is no point proving you are manly enough for VH/VH if you aren't enjoying it.

[Vasiliyi]

I have to say that I personally used to play M/e but I've recently changed to m/m because I haven't lost a battle to he ai for months. That said, I would like to recognize the the fact that after installing darth's formation mod I've noticed drastic changes in ai actions. I was fighting carthage as rome and they attacked me with about 4000 troops against 2500 or so. They had there forces split and they (reenforcements) actually met together, rested, then attacked. What followed was a massacre on both sides. What surprised me most was their use of elephants. They ALMOST flanked me succesfuilly. It was amazing! They managed to jumble my entire line of hastati (5 units) until they were massacred by the princepes pila. But seriously, if your looking for more realistic battle I do recommend darths formation mod. The ai will still do some stupid stuff, but its a lot less.

Sorry for hijacking this thread.

[StellarW]

Valion:

I have finished two campaigns on VH/VH but the number of battles but i must admit that the number of battle's can seem like 'work' later on especially considering how well you have to mass troops and how consistently accurately you have to handle them not to get yourself into trouble with the cheap elites the VH setting gives them. I you want a challenge without seriously unbalanced battles i suggest VH for strategic ( i have never even bothered trying something else) and Medium difficulty for battles and then some combination of the following handicaps i have used so far.

In order of general importance:

1. No more retraining! Alternatively you move the unit in question to the given city and rotate it clockwise from above the city until you allow yourself to retrain it four season later. You can make it slower than that or just limit the amount of units you can retrain per season or do retraining only in one season per year.

2. Only train units in two seasons of your choice per year. Two provides me with a nice challenge and forces you to create many more developed military cities.

3. No construction or unit training ( or change in the ques) without a family member or general present in a given city.

4. NO HORSE ARCHERS. There are few things that destabilizes things faster so use few unless you play nation that can't build much else in terms of cavalry.

4.1 In terms of army composition no more than half of what your deploying should be missile units ( not counting skirmishers) and that half should not contain more than five slinger or archer units.

5. No mercenaries; self explanatory as it just makes it too easy to save badly defended outlying cities.

6. Forts seriously compromises the AI's ability to exploit battlefield victories so don't use them at all or not in choke/ large numbers.

7. No pausing in battle ( unless you need to go somewhere) .

8. No time limit on battles. This in my experience gives the AI a chance to fully exploit advantages more so than it does for a human player.

9. Can not initiate battle without a family member or general present.

10. Always end battles when enemy morale fails.

If you do a few of 1-4 and a few of the rest you should have a decent challenge with your now rather smaller armies. :)

Enjoy

Stellar

[Starforge]

Great post by StellarW.

I typically run on VH/H or H/H (depending on faction I'm running) using quite a few of those houserules.

I would add one to it also: No siege fights. If they attack you and you take the city fine, otherwise leave the siege in place. This will slow down your expansion, allow the AI to rebuild (over 4-10 seasons) and tie up in early game a significant amount of your resources effectively making it very difficult to exploit via blitzkrieg.