What difficulty level do you play at?

[econ21]

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]

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

[TB666]

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

[Mount Suribachi]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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).

[Viking]

VH/M

I just don`t like that the AI cheats.

[Deus ret.]

which it does on vh anyway, since all AI factions receive an additional 10,000 denarii per turn if you set campaign difficulty to that level. I don't know what's the thing on 'hard', though....probably a more aggressive AI and more bribes by them.

[Mamba]

I suck at video games in general, so usually I stick with Easy/Easy. Occasionally I get the courage to step up a few levels, and have in fact won an Imperial Campaign on VH/VH. I always start off new factions with Easy/Easy.

[Monarch]

I suck at video games in general, so usually I stick with Easy/Easy. Occasionally I get the courage to step up a few levels, and have in fact won an Imperial Campaign on VH/VH. I always start off new factions with Easy/Easy.

Lol you've won on vh/vh but play on e/e?

Woh, that's...interesting.

[Seasoned Alcoholic]

RTW

I've played on various levels of both campaign and battlefield difficulty since RTW was released. Think I started off M / M and then after a few imperial campaigns, switched to VH / VH. There was a discussion about the various difficulty levels that went into some depth (people were actually testing the difficulty levels and reporting the results they encountered). Some stated that on VH / VH the AI and / or human player receives combat and / or morale bonuses. However, think this difficulty debate was posted at another forum, when I tried to search for that post, it and related ones had been deleted!

However, that post changed my mind about the difficulty levels in RTW. After many varied campaigns, the campaign difficulty appears to do exactly what it says on the tin But the battlefield difficulty on VH did follow a predictable pattern (as was discussed in that difficulty debate post), battles seemed shorter - either your or (more frequently) the AI's army would rout after a few moments of melee. Whereas in VH / M, the battles appeared to last longer because of the absence of these apparent morale and / or combat bonuses.

VH / M has been the difficulty level for me after original long spells on the higher difficulty levels.

On a side note, has this issue been addressed in the latest patches? I haven't played VH / VH since v1.2

BI

Haven't played that much BI tbh, although I've completed a Roxolani campaign on VH / VH (which was Very Hard, plenty of Pyrrhic victories / defeats here ). BI seems to have either removed or dealt with the apparent morale and / or combat bonuses, because the vanilla battles lasted greater periods of time than battles in RTW.

[professorspatula]

I play with VH Campaigns and Hard Battles. I have played a few VH battles, but I don't enjoy the AI having too many advantages in the battles when they already have bonuses on the campaign map, even if I do still whip it's stupid behind on a regular basis. Also regarding naval battles, as Simon as said, the advantage the AI gets in the these at VH difficulty is definitely reduced since version 1.3. I have won surprising victories against the AI on this difficulty level, even with much smaller fleets than my enemy. Providing I retrain my fleets as often as possible, it typically only requires a few fleets with 3-5 ships in them to maintain a naval superioty, whereas before you'd need about 3-4 x more ships than the AI to win just one naval battle.

[_Aetius_]

I always went VH/VH but its difficult for the wrong reasons, diplomacy becomes pointless and every war is one of attrition, your 2 stacks against 20 AI ones. Not to mention the fact the AI appears to have unlimited funds, which makes a nonsense of tribute and blockading ports.

So M/M or M/H and vice versa is probably best.

[ivoignob]

I started to play BI recently and didn't play RTW for a long while also. Even though I started first with VH/VH. But soon I realized, that playing the small barbarian factions seemed to be much too difficult for me. I lowered campaign difficulty to H for now. Lets see where it ends :-)

[SirGrotius]

I play on M/M, but am thinking of moving to H/M. I've always assumed the AI just gets unlimited monies, I didn't realize that my blocking ports might actually have had an effect on medium! Sweet.

[Dutch_guy]

v/h for the campaign map and Medium for the battles.

At least on medium the Ai doesn't get those ridiculous bonusses, which I absolutely loath.

[x-dANGEr]

What bonuses does the A.I. get on VH campaign? I mean, I never played below VH on campaign difficulty, and I already see it's stupid (In the campaign map).. Like, Germania attacks me (Scythia) while I can crush them in 3 turns and so on lol..

[econ21]

What bonuses does the A.I. get on VH campaign?

I heard they get 10000 gold per turn. The main effect I notice is that they are more likely to come at you with full stacks and they can do that repeatedly.

[Viking]

which it does on vh anyway, since all AI factions receive an additional 10,000 denarii per turn if you set campaign difficulty to that level. I don't know what's the thing on 'hard', though....probably a more aggressive AI and more bribes by them.

You sure about that? The AI seem to have crap economy still.

[Ordani]

H/H.

VH didn't seem any more challenging, just cheaper AI tricks and more tedium.

The only difference I see in VH vs H for battles is the minimum experience your troops need to not suck. It's 3 in VH and 2 H. Everything else is exactly the same. BFD.

[Deus ret.]

You sure about that? The AI seem to have crap economy still.

insofar as their building balance is concerned, yes. they don't seem to care a lot about their own empire, only about the foreign ones (also other AI) which have to be conquered with full force.....that may be why the AI tends to throw a ridiculous amount of armies at you, which becomes enervating after some time --- fighting more or less the same epic battle twice every year isn't really that entertaining on the long run....

[TinCow]

VH/VH - not realistic nor fair, but the most challenging. Not that I ever lose even then...

[Zatoichi]

H/H for me now that they've fixed the bug from 1.2. Actually I've not tried VH/VH yet - maybe my next campaign...

[Gen_Lee]

I play always on M/M.

[Swordsman]

I've been playing forever on M/M-- with a few games on H/M, where there didn't seem to be much difference. But, just for giggles, I played my first game on VH/M as Julii and was stunned! Within about 10 years or so Spain actually sailed TWO armies to Italy (simultaneously) and attacked me!! The unmitigated GAUL (sic) of 'em. Nothing remotely like it had ever happened before. Ok, I still won, but it sure put a crimp in my plans. So, notwithstanding possible economy & diplomacy cheats, I think I'll stick to the VH campaign mode where there is at least a possibility of something different happening.

[Mamba]

Lol you've won on vh/vh but play on e/e?

Woh, that's...interesting.

Yeah. I did it by slowly escalating the difficulty level.

E/E
M/M
H/H
VH/VH

After some trial and error I managed to beat each of these. I essentially mastered the faction.

[caspian]

VH/ VH on BI and I got the best challenge yet. You got 5-7 stacks each for every horde factions roaming the map, Roman cities are tempting but they can unleash their Comitatenses on your single fledgling city. The only faction you're sure not to attack you are the dead ones.
I have one game in five that survived to take more than 10 provinces since I started VH/VH, still getting used to the pace of BI.