Campaign / Battle difficulty settings

[pevergreen]

Had a massive shooting battle on VH. I won it. Even sides. I just lined up and shot at them.

[Eusebius86]

Here's the results of my testing on custom battles...

Tests were done with Medium Unit sizes, Great Britain, Line Infantry, no veterancy. All difficulties tested 3 times and averaged. In all tests my units were in 2 files, AI lined up units in 3. In all tests only the front row fired.

- Normal: I had 45 men remaining, AI had 15 men remaining. Pretty accurate if you consider the disadvantage of having 3 files instead of 2.
- Hard: I had 31 remaining, compared to the AI's 13. Once again, I won due to being in 2 files instead of 3. I should have tested at 3 files, but didn't...
- VH: I had 15 men remaining before routing, the AI had 40. VERY lopsided. AI fired very fast, and very accurately.

Interesting notes. Small difference between N and H. HUGE difference between H and VH. Also, AI behaved identically in all 3 difficulty settings. Exchanged rounds until my units dwindled down to about 45, and then charged. Very interesting.

This says nothing as to the AI's tactical abilities. Just that the AI does stat stack as far as reloading times, defense, and accuracy is considered (at a minimum). I'm sure the same applied to naval AI...

Campaign AI will take time to figure out.

[Susanna]

I did some testing now myself as well *feels all nerdy*
As Eusebius already noted, the AI DOES receive stat bonuses, and does so heavily indeed.


Test:
1 unit Line Infantry vs. 1 unit Line Infantry, very hard, both Austrian, late era, both deployed 4 ranks deep, units shoot until first one routs.

AI killed	Player killed	Result
16		134		AI WIN
27		113		AI WIN
24		108		AI WIN

Observation: So lopsided it's not even funny. AI Units reload faster, despite my unit firing the first salvo the AI always finished reloading first.

Test 2:

I messed around with experience on my unit, while leaving the AI unit at novice.
Breakeven point was roughly at 7-8 levels of experience. After being promoted 8 times my unit started to barely win against the novice AI infantry.

So at VH the AI gets roughly 8 experience levels worth of bonuses. Quite a lot.

[Pinxit]

This means that the Battle AI is causing more damage than fun. I will set it for medium and go VH on the Campaign difficulty instead.

[Alexander XXI]

I started my short campaign as Prussia on N/N. It was far too easy, I don't think I ever lost a battle, and the campaign was dire, even though I was at war with alot of people and every nation in Europe detested me, the only trouble I got was Bavaria revolting. Whenever Po-Lith or Austria ever attacked they just raided and were defeated easily. Playing an experimental campaign on H/H as Marathas was much better, hard makes it fun because it is a challenge, but I don't like the idea of the AI getting an unfair advantage on VH/VH. Think I will try Austria H/H next.

[Ishmael]

At the other end of the spectrum, does the human get bonuses on easy, or is the AI just worse (tactically that is-not stat wise)?

[Mister V]

Thank you, very important information in this thread. I'm going to start an England campaign on VH/H probably (if the Battle AI does get some tactical brains).