Faction difficulty ratings seem way off to me

[Tozama]

Did anyone else notice that the developer's opinions of which factions are easier, moderate, or harder than the current difficulty you chose are in reality not very true?

Comparatively speaking (meaning I am not seeking chest pounding replies on how every faction is easy cuz I am a war God) I find a lot of the ones the AI text says are harder or moderate are actually the easiest and the ones claimed to be moderate or easy are in fact harder than other choices.

For example:
French in high is considered moderate. BS You are stuck in the middle of everyone (almost as bad as HRE) and no one wants to ally with you on expert. I started a French high game last night and inside of 3 turns I was attacked by England, HRE and Argonese and no other factions will accept my alliance offers. I am holding on and have vanquished the English off the continent but my start position is precarious at best as French in high. Compared to many other factions I've played French and HRE seem among the toughest from a start position standpoint.

Spain in early should be called easiest faction ever created IMO

I have other examples but am not at home to que up the
text to refresh my memory right now.

I state this weighing all factors together as the campaign begins. Meaning financial position or immediate potential of attaining good cashflow. Strategic position as the game begins as far as what you own, how many borders, how well built up your provinces are and what armies you start with or can build right away.

The game is won or lost and also setup for you to exploit easily or very tough in the first 20-30 years IMO.
IMO in MTW what you do with what you have to start with in the first 20 years generally sets the pace for the rest of the game. Be it a hard road or an easy run.

Whether or not my faction gets special jedi troops in late when I am playing an early game seems irrelavent to me since I will finish long before late period anyway.

[massamuusi]

Actually, france has a lot of rich provinces and good chances for expansion in any direction. Also, if you are invaded pope will usually come to your aide, if your troops should fail.
When AI plays france, they tend to kick ass big time. When I played them I also thought they are much easier to play with, than, say, the turks..

[TEHLL]

I'm new to the game, but I also find the difficulty settings to be wierd, but one thing that is consistent is that the supposedly higher dfficulty factions have a hard time getting their alliances and cease- fires accepted- even when they have big troop formations at their borders.

[massamuusi]

Since when has anyone cared for the diplomacy in MTW? I mean, it has no other point than that allies are somewhat less likely to attack you, but almost always if someone attacks you all your allies vanish.
It is much better to not care that much about diplomacy, and put more effort to conquering your neighbours. If you do get an ally, it doesn't help you at all, but rarely hurts either.
A position in centre is the best position you can have, as the expansion can be directed at any direction, if you hit a wall in one direction you can try another one.
Alliances are more easily accepted if you steadily conquer territory. If you are pacifist no one likes you at least according to my experiences. When you conquer territory you get influence and influence matters. At worst alliance can be a reason why you can't invade someone.

[mdutr0]

I actually agree with you. I think the diff. ratings are pretty far off too.

I do disagree on one point though. Spanish ain't the easiest. Try Byzantium in Early. Then you will discover the true meaning of the word easy.

Of course it could just be that their armies lend themselves to my playing style...

Or perhaps I am a War God ;)


Thanks,

Micah

[Papewaio]

You where French and the English where still on the mainland after 3 turns You should be sitting in the South of England with Flanders secure eying up the German borders... believe me a battlehardened army is the best form of diplomacy.

Wipe out the English ASAP... make a deal with Italians and Germans... the Argonese are going to attack so be ready with a few extra spearmen... say goodbye royal knights and then hello iron works.

Polish are fairly hard to play.

[Tozama]

I am enjoying the challenge so I am not complaining.
I haven't played as French in almost a year and the newness maybe is a factor. Its enjoyable as I feel so much pressure so quickly.

As for the English issue.....I went at them turn one but I wasn't expecting multiple factions to attack me in the first 3 years. Aragon was a total shock to me.
I have Flanders and Wessex tied up and yes England is subdued now until I muster enough men to finish him.
But Argonese and HRE are keeping me on my toes at home.

Its fun....not saying it isn't....but I have played many a faction that was much easier.

I also agree Byzantines early is a cakewalk. I enjoyed them and are probably my fav. faction overall but it just got too easy and became less fun due to that fact.

[mdutr0]

Yeah, I'm playing an Early Byz. campaign right now (first time I've tried them).

It would probably be much more difficult in High or Late when you have to rebuild the Empire from scratch

Good luck with the French though, I'm sure I'll get to them eventually.

Thanks,

Micah

[MadKow]

So far i've only played Normal dificulty. But i came to prefer both the Spanish and the Turks (in Early) precisely because i find them easier.

They have the units to dominate their early opponents (with Jinetes and Horse archers) they can both quickly establish a strong economy and solid defendable borders.

I find playing Egypt more challenging, or even Denmark (with it's money problems), not to mention HRE that to my personal style is simply impossible to rule. And this for the same reason i have problems with the Bizantine: they are too big to start with.

I prefer to start with a relatively small territory and grow from there. That way i canhave a grip on things. Playing the Bizantines i always seem to forget checking production in half a dozen provinces...

[katank]

HRE is a true nightmare for me. they have a center position and it sucks.

it's next to impossible to move troops from one side to another before the war is over and even the first turn of assigning govs takes forever.

blitzing Italians and Danes help but you are still kinda shafted.

best form of diplo is very short borders with strong stacks on them as well as a dominant navy.

still, I have seen cases of the Polish sending 2 units against my brick wall of 5 stacks led by a 7* general and deciding they cannot win and retreat.

this was enough for all my alliances to go out the window.

[katank]

as for the French High business, the Aragonese are programmed to go for Toulouse and it's not that bad if you quickly knock out the Brits.

I was able to simultaneously attack the Eggy and quickly established a presence in the middle east with Antioch, Syria, Edessa and Egypt as my borders.

I also took all the British provinces as well as Aragon and Navarre.

being able to blitz in opposite corners of the map and jugglng colonies in terms of development is really interesting.

[Chimpyang]

Polan on Expert is quite hard if you're very aggresive. Your tiny under4developed country simply doesnt have the means to conquoer much. The economy has to be tended carefull until you can risk expandin. Of course, by then your enemies have gotten lot stronger, a lot quicker.

[katank]

which era?

if early, blitz the Huns in Hungary and split their kingdom, then ransom their king for mucho cash and do a delayed verison of the Hungarian Venice grab.

[Colovion]

Quote[/b] (massamuusi @ July 21 2004,05:07)]Since when has anyone cared for the diplomacy in MTW? I mean, it has no other point than that allies are somewhat less likely to attack you, but almost always if someone attacks you all your allies vanish.

Yeah I wish you could build your allies up or at least send spies in to their Kings Chambers to find out what he really thinks of you... things lilke Worships you or Fears you and so on

[RollingWave]

Most catholic factions are pretty hard due to shite position.... the Danes are probably the biggest exception and to a lesser degree the Spaniards and Brits are also a somewhat more secure....

Contrary to what most people would think... i think playing the turks is probably the easiest i've had so far.... using blitz strats and staying relatively agressive early i was easily able to go from cyrcia to bulgaria, greece and georgia in around 30-40 turns.... that's a VAST empire with insanely good wealth... I would think it is more than possible to conquer the map as turks before the mongols hit if u stay agressive and don't run into bad rebellion situations....

The only weakness they really have is that they blow against the mongols since they are about the only faction tha doesn't get arbalest.... which seriously hurt them in long drawn out battles...

But the fact that they can easily start producing very high quality heavy cav befoer most faction could even produce LIGHT cavs combined with the most efficent massable Horse archer and the most solid spear in early AND several very good hybrid archer AND insane support units like naptha and camals.... the turks have by far the best military potential in early..... their position is also safer in terms of sea attacks compare to the almos.... and once you get a sea rout going u can easily reinforce most of ur empire fast..... (which makes running a large empire a lot more feasble for them than most other factions)

[Tomassi_Rossino]

The Danes can rake in quite a lot of money though.

You get 2 units of Vikings and the Kings unit. March them into Sweden. Sweden is quite a big sponge for money. You can build it up for a lot of profit. Add some trading routes, copper mines. The Danes don't need a big army from the start - but if you get lots of profit then you can breed an army and declare war on Germany. From Saxony you can invade a number of provinces. So the Danes might not be so hard but there are better nations.

[katank]

turks blow against the mongols? are you kidding?

sure they don't have the arbs but they have awesome archers.

most can shoot and fight.

turcoman foot are the best archers for missile dueling.

they also get JHI and valor bonused JHI from bulgaria are killer plug units.

I can usually also get janny archers out by then.

massed jihads will also destroy the mongols.

naptha spam can also blow the MHC on the bridges to smithereens.

[lars573]

It's been my experience that any faction that has less than 3 provinces to start has a rougher time of it. Denmark and aragon are prime examples of this and sicily to a lesser extent. Also the germans and the byzantines have a hard time inspirinjg loyalty in their generals, plus other faction like to use them for punching bags. As the germans i'v had the french, itallians, hungarians, and poles try to take me out in a short time. Also if you defeat the HRE more than 2 times in quick succession the empire will collapse in rebellion. The byzantine AI never uses it's advantage very often and usually gets hammerd by, the sicilians, the hungarians, the turks or the egyptians before 1200.

[Maeda Toshiie]

The labelling of the HRE as normal is singularly the biggest lie in the game. Low rank + low influence of an emperor is a recipe for disaster. More often than not I see the HRE getting embroiled in a civil war that basically dooms them to ignorminy and destruction. I have even seen the polish or danish expand before, but never the HRE, despite of their starting size.

[RollingWave]

The Dane's are quiet easy acturally... they start with only 1 province yes but they can build very cheap vikings right off the bat which is basically a armor piercing men at arms with better moral that only need a fort to build ...

The can quickly grab 2 very useful rebel province.. sweden is a insanely good province and norway is not that bad once you get trade going... (not to meantion producing the extra valor vikings...)

their only bordering faction off the start is the hidiously weak Holy Roman empire.... they very rarely will muster up much of a force against you.

AND they can build a very cheap ship... and their position means they can get awsome trade going faster than almost any faction except sicllian/italian.

Aragon on the other hand is harder... as you are wedged between quiet a few faction ..... and doesn't start with much of a advantage unit such as vikings.... but if you manage to grab the iberians and toulous etc... u are a huge powerhouse too....

Sicillian is quiet easy too.... pretty safe position and extremely early acess to trade is very easy to capitalize...

Katanks: i didn't mod my game so i could build grandmosque/military acd anywhere :P ... and mongols are script to hit you with a bigger army anyway... my problem is that my arrows run out way sooner than his and the rather stupid reinforment system doesn't always give me what i want... so i often end up with no arrows and a mix of cav/inf against the mongol reinforcements which are typically a **** load of horse cav.... fighting horse cavs with no arrow is suicidal to say the least..... and unless you have a very clear build rout ur not going to get jannis before the mongols hit in sufficient numbers anyway.... (excluding mass jihad abuse :P)

And even worse in that last campaign i already took all of the stepps when they came... so i had to abandon kharzar and pulled off 2 very hard victory in georgia and armenia .. but this pretty much forfieted the entire stepps to the mongols and the reemerging novorgod only complicated the situation :P

And obviously since i was arleady by far the biggest empire by then... most of the west decided this was a great time to start crusading against me again XD.... while i just finsihed the almos which took longer than i expected.... (fighting desert wars is always hard to get things going ur way...)

anyway my conclusion is that fighting the mongols with arbs/spear is far easier than using a matching mixed army.... of course the later is quiet possible too but moer problematic....

[Despot of the English]

Byzantines in Early is like a walk in the park. I don't see why the developers felt it necessary to give them such great princes from the off. Perhaps they could have made Emperor Alexius a 9-star general thereby ensuring that his heirs are not the 6, 7, 8 star jedi usually associated with the Byzantines.

[ah_dut]

on one faction they got it damn straight, Novgorod, they are piss poor. However with Katank's patented Conspantinople grap. you're usually ok. ummm.... silver armoured boyars

[Tricky Lady]

Quote[/b] (Despot of the English @ July 22 2004,12:50)]Perhaps they could have made Emperor Alexius a 9-star general thereby ensuring that his heirs are not the 6, 7, 8 star jedi usually associated with the Byzantines.

Isn't it easy to mod the game so that the Byzantines start with a 9*? Just change the stats of the first Byzantine famous king (can't remember in which file to find this though) and it should be done, not?

[caravel]

Whichever catholic faction you are, you'll only expand so much into Europe before everyone will gang up on you. A typical example is the english campaign I'm in now. I crushed the french, who had no allies from day one, early and took all of their territory and Navarre from the rebels. Assassinated the Aragonese and bribed the resulting rebels there. Bribed rebels in Burgundy and everything was fine still allied to virtually every faction. Then the germans invaded... Held those off without upsetting the pope. Everyone stayed allied to me, germans lost alliances, then the Italians had a go. Few years later the spanish. The Spanish and Italians got lucky and decimated half of my fleets and then the Spaniards defeated me in Aragon and Navarre. That triggered a massive civil war followed by a massive civil war. I've pulled back to the coastal province and have just re-expanded further inland.

It seems to me that the AI attacks once you get so many provinces? Or that the AI always plays a GA game and considers many provinces as being theirs by right. I had never made war on any of them before they attacked me and had only bribed or taken rebel provinces. All of their attacks broke alliance treaties and if the spanish hadn't attacked me as well I'd have easily destroyed the Germans and Italians who were suffering unnumbered civil wars and revolts.

Through all this neither the Spanish the Germans nor the Italians got excommunicated, though I did, despite having me under siege for over two years in toulouse and repeatedly attacking my provinces and shipping, while I didn't attack theirs once.

So it seems you can't play the popes' game and use him to your advantage and the AI catholic faction can do what it likes so long as it doesn't attack the pope or his allies?

[Ludens]

There is a point on which all factions turn against you (they won't ally with you anymore and it will take little enticement for them to attack), but this is when you conquer 60% of the map.
I don't know if the computer is preprogrammed to attack you if you play very agresively. I think not, the computer factions have a nasty habit of attacking you anyway. Strategic intelligence is not the game's best part.

About the pope, the rules for excommunication are the same for all catholic factions, including AI ones. The only exception is the Pope, who cannot get excommunicated for attacking. The rules are:

Quote[/b] ]The rules for excommunication is quite simple. If a faction with twice the number of regions attacks, he gets a warning. Any aggressive action before the warning runs out leads to excommunication. Sally out of a besieged castle is not aggressive (since the patch) but retaking lost a region does count as aggressive. Attacking the papist is automatic excommunication. Blocking a crusade in conquest mode is automatic excommunication, in glorious goals mode it depends on if the crusade's object is a goal or not.

Being friendly with the pope has no effect on the rules. But he will send you cash if he has any spare.

This information comes from Eat Cold Steal, one the developers (taken from the beginner's guide).

[Despot of the English]

More about that damned Pope.
I got excommunicated for defending my own province from attack. So was I supposed to abandon it or something? The Pope had originally warned me to stop attacking the Valencians or else. That I did but then the Valencians attacked me in Aragon, I successfully defended it in battle and then got promptly excommunicated.

[caravel]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ July 24 2004,11:06)]About the pope, the rules for excommunication are the same for all catholic factions, including AI ones. The only exception is the Pope, who cannot get excommunicated for attacking. The rules are:

Quote[/b] ]The rules for excommunication is quite simple. If a faction with twice the number of regions attacks, he gets a warning. Any aggressive action before the warning runs out leads to excommunication. Sally out of a besieged castle is not aggressive (since the patch) but retaking lost a region does count as aggressive. Attacking the papist is automatic excommunication. Blocking a crusade in conquest mode is automatic excommunication, in glorious goals mode it depends on if the crusade's object is a goal or not.

Being friendly with the pope has no effect on the rules. But he will send you cash if he has any spare.

This information comes from Eat Cold Steal, one the developers (taken from the beginner's guide).

I know how it's supposed to work by the book, but I don't understand why other catholic factions controlled by the AI can attack my shipping and hold one of provinces under siege for a few years and get away with it. I had an it is likely to last for 9 years german siege situation. So I thought I'll wait this out and they'll get excommunicated after two and then launch my crusade from wessex as a counter attack. The Italians attacked my shipping and sunk quite a few vessels but my ships managed to sink alot more of theres defensively. I retaliated and sank one of their galleys off the spanish coast:

...a warning from the pope...

I really do think that the pope favours the AI

[katank]

they do. counterattacks and even successful defenses also count for excomm.

[Sociopsychoactive]

Your forgetting the major malfuncion with the pope. he can only warn someone against ONE faction at a time, and the warning lasts 12 years, counting the year it was given.

During those 12 years you are free to attack any other catholic faction without reprisals from the pope but you will still be penalised for attacking the one you are warned about.

Succesfully defending does not get you excommunicated, but if you reteated to the caste, sallied out and sent re-enfporcements from outside the province, that counts as attacking, even though you are technically defending what was yours.

And no-one gets warned for attacking a faction that isn't half the size they are, so normally the warning only tends to apply to you.

You can still get immediately excommed fro disallowing a crusade, attacking the pope and so on, but durin g the 12 years your warned about one faction your free to kill any others, as far as I know anyway.

[caravel]

That makes it alot clearer thanks