Poll: scale the difficulty of each campaign

[xypherx]

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.

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 ^^ ...