Legendary difficulty

[phonicsmonkey]

I 'quit' TW after ETW due to the total inability of the AI to provide me with a challenging campaign. I only came back with TWS2 because everyone said the AI was vastly improved. I don't enjoy games where I know I'm going to win when I start playing. In TWS2, Legendary difficulty gives me a true chance of losing. The Oda Legendary campaigns have been, by far, the hardest campaigns I have ever played in any TW game. That's exactly what I want, and for that reason I won't play anything other than Legendary.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Legendary the same as VH but just without the ability to save mid-turn? I would like to give Legendary a go but the way I play (getting up, sitting down again, rushing off to do something else), the saving thing is prohibitive for me. I had consoled myself that I wasn't really missing out on anything...

[Dead Guy]

You also cannot give orders while battles are paused, or move the camera at all IIRC. Don't think that's in VH, or am I remembering wrong?

[frogbeastegg]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Legendary the same as VH but just without the ability to save mid-turn? I would like to give Legendary a go but the way I play (getting up, sitting down again, rushing off to do something else), the saving thing is prohibitive for me. I had consoled myself that I wasn't really missing out on anything...

To quote my as-yet-unpublished guide on the matter of legendary difficulty:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Legendary

Legendary is the mode where you should pretty much expect to die unless you play an absolutely exceptional game, and quite possibly even then. This is a new difficulty mode, combining very hard mode with a series of extras to create the ultimate Total War challenge. Some of these extras were available as optional modes in prior titles, such as restricting the camera so it could not move past a set distance from your troops. Others are entirely new. The AI does not gain any new bonuses or capabilities compared to very hard; this mode focuses on curbing the god-like abilities normally available to the player. Once you commit to legendary difficulty you cannot alter the difficulty for that campaign, neither on the campaign map nor on the battle map.

On legendary mode you are only permitted a single save. Each time you save your game your old save will be overwritten. If things go pear shaped, tough! No winding the clock back. The game is saved before and after every battle; if you lost your entire army, live with it! You may find yourself developing a degree of sympathy to the AI, which can never reload.

The remainder of the changes affect the battle map, and are as follows:

• No radar map for land and sea battles
• While the game is paused no orders can be given
• The camera cannot be moved while the game is paused
• You cannot move your camera more than 200 meters from the centre of any of your units. The camera will be "rubber banded" to the nearest unit
• Enemy units more than 600 meters from your units are treated as hidden
• Enemy Tooltips have minimal information
• Enemy Unit IDs are removed

Even if you are not keen on tough games it is worth trying this mode at least once, just to see how different the experience is.

[TinCow]

The no orders (or even looking around) while paused, combined with the lack of minimap, makes a HUGE difference. I cannot count the number of times I have been flanked or charged in the rear by AI units that I didn't see as a result of these changes.

[Merak]

To quote my as-yet-unpublished guide on the matter of legendary difficulty:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Legendary

Legendary is the mode where you should pretty much expect to die unless you play an absolutely exceptional game, and quite possibly even then. This is a new difficulty mode, combining very hard mode with a series of extras to create the ultimate Total War challenge. Some of these extras were available as optional modes in prior titles, such as restricting the camera so it could not move past a set distance from your troops. Others are entirely new. The AI does not gain any new bonuses or capabilities compared to very hard; this mode focuses on curbing the god-like abilities normally available to the player. Once you commit to legendary difficulty you cannot alter the difficulty for that campaign, neither on the campaign map nor on the battle map.

On legendary mode you are only permitted a single save. Each time you save your game your old save will be overwritten. If things go pear shaped, tough! No winding the clock back. The game is saved before and after every battle; if you lost your entire army, live with it! You may find yourself developing a degree of sympathy to the AI, which can never reload.

The remainder of the changes affect the battle map, and are as follows:

• No radar map for land and sea battles
• While the game is paused no orders can be given
• The camera cannot be moved while the game is paused
• You cannot move your camera more than 200 meters from the centre of any of your units. The camera will be "rubber banded" to the nearest unit
• Enemy units more than 600 meters from your units are treated as hidden
• Enemy Tooltips have minimal information
• Enemy Unit IDs are removed

Even if you are not keen on tough games it is worth trying this mode at least once, just to see how different the experience is.

holy mother and i have real difficultly on normal (playing on easy right now) :)

[Jacobin]

OK have made multiple attempts at the Oda on legendary and it is insanely difficult.

My latest attempt was terminated in Turn 23 when no fewer than 3 stacks totalling 9,000 Ikko Ikki descended on my last castle (and I don't even have the DLC so these were regular unbuffed Ikko Ikki).

This goes beyond challenging or even unfair to become just silly - how on earth can an AI faction recruit and send three nearly full stacks against just one of their multiple enemies so early in the game?

Pity as every legendary campaign I've tried so far has been real fun for the first dozen or so turns - the lack of a invisible helicopter camera makes battles a lot more realistic/interesting and the no save idea does really concentrate the mind and make every decision a life and death one.

But if at turn 20-ish great undefeatable hordes of AI troops are stomping around annihilating everything in their path there really doesn't seem much point in playing at legendary.

And if I can't feel both challenged and still have a chance of winning at the hardest difficulty level then I really feel as if I've wasted my money....

[TinCow]

OK have made multiple attempts at the Oda on legendary and it is insanely difficult.

My latest attempt was terminated in Turn 23 when no fewer than 3 stacks totalling 9,000 Ikko Ikki descended on my last castle (and I don't even have the DLC so these were regular unbuffed Ikko Ikki).

This goes beyond challenging or even unfair to become just silly - how on earth can an AI faction recruit and send three nearly full stacks against just one of their multiple enemies so early in the game?

Pity as every legendary campaign I've tried so far has been real fun for the first dozen or so turns - the lack of a invisible helicopter camera makes battles a lot more realistic/interesting and the no save idea does really concentrate the mind and make every decision a life and death one.

But if at turn 20-ish great undefeatable hordes of AI troops are stomping around annihilating everything in their path there really doesn't seem much point in playing at legendary.

And if I can't feel both challenged and still have a chance of winning at the hardest difficulty level then I really feel as if I've wasted my money....

Yeah, this is the exact same problem I have with Oda. I don't think it's so much Legendary that is the problem as much as Oda's location. The religious difference and Ikko's aggressive AI make it pretty much impossible to avoid war with them. It's also generally inevitable that you'll end up at war with the Hattori or whichever other factions ends of taking control of that area. Even if you secure the coastal corridor, that means you still have three different avenues of approach to your 'heartland' of Owari and Mino. These are: (1) road from Omi to Mino, (2) road from South Shinano to Mino, and (3) road from Ise/Omi to Owari. That's a LOT of territory to cover with defensive armies; I generally cannot afford enough armies to take care of that area plus the coastal road. In addition, it's very difficult to make that defense simpler. In many spots on the map a bad defensive location can be overcome by simply blitzing through it to grab the choke-point provinces beyond. That can't be done in the Oda starting area. To the east, expanding to South Shinano helps create a 'speedbump' before an attacker gets to Mino, but doesn't reduce the number of armies you need to defend the area. To the west, moving into Ise and Omi actively increases the number of access points into your territory. In order to simplify the defense, you have to take a LOT of land, namely Ise, Omi, Iga, Yamato, Kii, Kawachi, and Kyoto. I have yet to be able to assemble enough armies to be able to do that while still defending my lands.

For this reason, next time I try Oda I am going to attempt to relocate slightly. I will move south into the coastal corridor. After conquering Mikawa I will abandon Owari and Mino. Mikawa is a good choke-point province and with a strong castle and a full stack I think I can hold it just fine while expanding towards Hojo along the coast. This will also significantly reduce the number of clans I have borders with, which should also reduce the number of wars I have to fight. Not likely to see many Ikko in Mikawa early in the game. The coastal corridor has some super provinces, and I can grab a library province, a blacksmith province, and a gold mine province while still holding a good defensive position. With those in my pocket I think I can tech up, grab some trade nodes, and build up a good enough force to take back Owari/Mino and then blitz into the Kyoto region. I haven't done this yet, but it's what I'm going to try on my third go at Oda Legendary.

[frogbeastegg]

Isn't Oda the hardest of the playable clans on legendary? A lot of people seem to think so, and from their position on the map I'd agree. At least the other very difficult clan, the Tokugawa, have their overlords to shelter behind if they play the diplomacy game correctly.

Hojo look like they would be an interesting one to try on legendary IMO. The combination of their position in busy central Japan, and their castle related bonus, should combine nicely. Once the guide is done and my current Date campaign concluded, I may give it a go. I'm not sure how I will get on though; I hate having a restricted camera on the battlefield and always used to turn it off in the earlier games. I used to have lots of problems with running my 'face' smack into an invisible wall right where I needed to give a move order.

I wonder if anyone has tried the Ikko-Ikki on legendary?

[TinCow]

Based on their location, I think Hattori would be pretty hard on Legendary as well. Possibly rivaling Oda. They've basically got the same problem; too many invasion routes to defend early on in the game, and the Ikko nearby ready to send their gibbering hordes at you. However, since I didn't buy the Limited Edition, I can't play them and thus don't know for sure.