What difficulty level do you play at?

**econ21** · 02-04-2006, 19:21

I mainly play BI or mods like RTR and EB, so I like Medium battles. These give historical match ups that feel right. Also, I suspect the harder difficulty levels are biased towards very offensive-oriented tactics (e.g. using cavalry and missiles).

I haven't looked back since switching to VH campaigns. This tends to allow the AI to repeatedly muster full stack armies, maintaining the challenge.

**Drusus Magnus** · 02-04-2006, 19:26

M&M. I think difficulty levels need to increase the AI, not just allow the computer to cheat.

**TB666** · 02-04-2006, 19:26

I use VH/VH.
It gives me the biggest challenge so the choice is natural.

**Mount Suribachi** · 02-04-2006, 19:28

Hard and Very Hard campaign difficulty really annoy me due to 2 main reasons

1) The difficulty in obtaining map information and alliances - no one want to know you. I've even had a faction cancel an alliance and attack me simply because I asked to swap maps. Grrrrr.....

2) The ridiculous results you constantly get with naval battles. Of course 4 Triremes with a 2 star Admiral should lose more men in a battle with a solitary Bireme with a zero star Admiral. Grrrrrr.......

I appreciate that its meant to be more difficult - like most here I want a challenge but when it starts being silly to the point that it ruins game features, that annoys me.

**x-dANGEr** · 02-04-2006, 20:00

VH/VH. Surely it's really annoying when that first cohort drive through your infantry as a knife through hot butter, but still, would it be better if your Levy Spearmen unit do the same to theirs?

**econ21** · 02-04-2006, 20:04

Originally Posted by Mount Suribachi

2) The ridiculous results you constantly get with naval battles.

That put me right off VH campaigns in the early versions of RTW, but I think they fixed that with the patches at some point. I've not had that many counter-intuitive naval battle results with VH, although I may be a little biased as I only give battle when I have an advantage.

**orangat** · 02-04-2006, 21:57

M/M. I don't bribe and exploit any of the hacky little tricks. The full stack armies is pointless since the sense of achievement is diminished for battles. If I wanted to go through 20 armies, its easier to play custom battles.

**Monarch** · 02-04-2006, 22:14

Nice poll.

I just stepped up from m/m to hard campaign/medium battles. I dont want the stupid advantages AI gets in battles, so I dont think I'll ever step up in that respect. I've only been playing RTW for a couple of months, gradually moving up the diofficulty levels (starting out at e/e lol). One day I'll play VH campaign, but for me hard campaign appaears to be offering a nice challenge, however I am not really a 'hard core' strategy gamer, I just enjoy them so yeah hard seems to be a good match for me.

Though on a side note I think it does depend on faction, in my Seleucid campaign (I'm actually carrying on from my pbem campaign because I liked the game) you get attacked on the east from parthia, north from pontus/armenia/greece and south from Egypt. Which is obviously going to be harder than say a Julii campaign, where IMO as soon as you kick the Gauls out of Patavium and Mediolanum, it's just a matter of finishing them off and then heading into Iberia or Germania.

**Tricky Lady** · 02-04-2006, 22:32

I'm still stuck on M/M, at least I was for the last campaigns I played. I do manage to actually suffer some humiliating defeats at this level, so I believe this difficulty level suits me just well. In my last Macedonian campaign my main advancing army, led by a promising youngster got utterly trashed before the gates of Roma by a combined Julii/Senate force, and the young general got

by the Roman general's bodyguards, so I guess this difficulty setting is enough of a challenge for me

But this is mainly because I don't play that often (anymore) and I've never been a hardcore gamer anyway (at least not in the way that I'm looking for a challenge, lol).