After a break will be starting a Roman Campaign, which difficulty lvl should I play?

[Conan]

Hey guys,

Had a few years off EB and still very much looking forward to EBII, but until then I've re-installed EB with "Jirisys' Europa Barbarorum Mega Mod Pack for EB 1.2 with Alexander" and going to start a new Roman campaign.

Question is which campaign difficulty setting should I have? I can't really remember if I did a Roman campaign on Very Hard. I would like to do one but what can I expect?

Thanks for your time guys!

[d'Arthez]

Really depends on your gaming style. If you are only able to sneak in a single turn or two turns per session, AI tends to become braindead, and won't do much, other than collecting insane elite stacks (when a game is loaded, AI has to draw up strategies anew it seems). Those stacks would be your only real challenge on Very Hard then. Even if the whole world declares war on you, you should be able to manage it relatively comfortably.

If you play longer sessions, AI will obviously be challenging, because they will actually try to execute a strategy, and create elite stacks and hire mercenaries when they can afford them. The downside is that unless you blitz, you can end up having to wage 5 / 6 battles per turn, which will be a very frustrating experience.

So if you are more into turtling, I'd recommend Hard or even Medium campaign difficulty.

What might also be a nice idea is to give the Eleutheroi massive monetary bonuses through the EBBS, so that they can actually develop and defend their cities with more success.

[mikepettyrtw]

I'm interested in how you learned of the AI mental reloading. It sort of reminds of the "Matrix" for some reason.

[Rovert]

you gota go H/H , even VH battles but the ai can become really gay on that setting and just walk high right on the map and walk its entire force at your right flank slowly.
VH campaign AI is just annoying and VH battles cavalry gets chewed up by bitch troops , so i would have to suggest H/H just so playable.
RTW engines just blows these days , we need EB2

[SoFarSoGood]

H/H and blitz works for Romans most times.

[seleucid empire]

Hmm For some reason, Italy seems to spawn a lot of rebel stacks, and a few of them are actually quite large. I used to play VH as Romans but I got caught unawares once and lost Capua. So i started playing on H instand of VH

[Brennus]

I would suggest H/M. Epeiros and the Carthaginian cities in Sicily will be a walkover but once you find yourself stuck in campaigns in Iberia, Africa and Greece (as always happens when the going is initially easy) you will find it delightfully challenging. The Lusotannan in particular will be a real challenge.

[Kralizec]

VH/M. You can handle it.

I think that a lower setting of H/M would be justifyable for some smaller factions, but certainly not the Romans. Italy itself has amazing economic potential and you have an unparalelled choice of where to expand.

The biggest annoyances in my old Roman campaign were the continuous assaults of the Sweboz from the north. I solved this by conquering the two cities in the Alps between us, made them Type IV client kingdoms and used native troops (lots of slingers in particular) to repel the occasional siege. It was quite managable.

[seleucid empire]

VH/M. You can handle it.

I think that a lower setting of H/M would be justifyable for some smaller factions, but certainly not the Romans. Italy itself has amazing economic potential and you have an unparalelled choice of where to expand.

The biggest annoyances in my old Roman campaign were the continuous assaults of the Sweboz from the north. I solved this by conquering the two cities in the Alps between us, made them Type IV client kingdoms and used native troops (lots of slingers in particular) to repel the occasional siege. It was quite managable.

it would be more than an occasional siege. For me, when I played romans they sweboz would have a pattern for attacking me. So they would send 2-4 stacks one after the other and then be quiet for a few years before they did the thing again

[Kralizec]

Well, maybe some background information from my campaign would explain it.

The Sweboz first attacked me from the alps. I was allied with the Averni. They were getting rapidly exterminated by the Aedui and Sweboz. I intervened: destroyed the Aedui, drove the Sweboz out of Gaul and gave the Averni most of the Gallic provinces. The motivation was that I really didn't want to conquer Gaul in an early stage for myself; I wanted to be able to face the Gauls in late game.
I also took those two cities in the Alps (the two directly north of Italy) from the Sweboz so that I had a buffer against them, consisting of Type IV client states. Because I had beefed up the Averni considerably by now, and becaus I had launched a couple of punitive raids against the Sweboz, they never became much of a threat again. They still attacked my two Alp cities regularly but rarely with full stacks. Usually I could decimate a besieging army in one turn with mostly slingers. It's an annoyance to be sure, but nothing major.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I also took those two cities in the Alps (the two directly north of Italy) from the Sweboz so that I had a buffer against them, consisting of Type IV client states. Because I had beefed up the Averni considerably by now, and becaus I had launched a couple of punitive raids against the Sweboz, they never became much of a threat again. They still attacked my two Alp cities regularly but rarely with full stacks. Usually I could decimate a besieging army in one turn with mostly slingers. It's an annoyance to be sure, but nothing major.

Did you not consider giving the two cities in the Alps to the Arveni or Aedui instead? The Sweboz AI will not attack you if it doesn't share a border with you, hence creating buffer states controlled by other factions can be more useful than creating Type IV governments - the AI doesn't care what the government level is, it regards those towns as yours and the AI tends to regard the human player as the primary target, especially on higher difficulty levels.

[Kralizec]

I'm aware of that, but I didn't expect that the Averni would be able to keep those towns.

For various I often go out of my way to prop up my allies. In my experience if you save a faction from extinction by returning key provinces to them, they're still not be competitive with their enemies and will usually lose their newly gained cities in a couple of years.

Giving the Alp cities to the Averni and making peace with the Sweboz would merely have made the Averni their main target, and probably would have lost some of the Gallic cities again that I worked so hard to acquire for them. Because I stayed at war with the Sweboz however I divert some of the forces that would otherwise have been sent against my ally.

[d'Arthez]

I'm interested in how you learned of the AI mental reloading. It sort of reminds of the "Matrix" for some reason.

I always play on VH/M.

Mainly my experiences in a few dozen Hayasdan and Baktria campaigns. The campaigns in which I only played a few turns / session tended to be a lot easier than the ones in which I tried to play a similar style but longer sessions. In the short session campaigns I would never meet substantial resistance from the Arche Seleukeia. Not so when I played longer sessions. Came even close to defeat once or twice.

You can also see it if you play with FOW disabled, and follow AI characters.

[mikepettyrtw]

I always play on VH/M.

Mainly my experiences in a few dozen Hayasdan and Baktria campaigns. The campaigns in which I only played a few turns / session tended to be a lot easier than the ones in which I tried to play a similar style but longer sessions. In the short session campaigns I would never meet substantial resistance from the Arche Seleukeia. Not so when I played longer sessions. Came even close to defeat once or twice.

You can also see it if you play with FOW disabled, and follow AI characters.

I am going to look very deeply into that as I have experienced something similar. Lately I sacked all of mesopotamia and much of western persia in my current Saka campaign. It seemed a little too easy. After reading what you said, I think it might be that I was playing inbetwen 3 campaigns and the constant reloading was FUBAR'ing the AI. I'll try to play each faction longer now. Here's a balloon for that extremely pertinent observation (feel free to put that one in your sig). I think your observation may have quite a large impact on my campaigns.
PS. I know this is like an EB-sin, but I do wonder if the AI in Civ 4 does the same thing.