What difficulty level do you play at?

**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).

**Viking** · 02-04-2006, 23:22

VH/M

I just don`t like that the AI cheats.

**Deus ret.** · 02-05-2006, 05:12

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** · 02-05-2006, 06:53

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** · 02-05-2006, 10:15

Originally Posted by 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.

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

Woh, that's...interesting.

**Viking** · 02-06-2006, 20:23

Originally Posted by 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.

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

**Ordani** · 02-06-2006, 20:58

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.** · 02-07-2006, 12:27

Originally Posted by Major Chris

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....

**Garvanko** · 02-08-2006, 16:58

Originally Posted by 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.

Hard is very balanced. Challenging, but not ridiculously so - I hate seeing the ten to twenty full AI stacks queuing up on my borders in VH - just doesn't seem realistic, especially when you're economy is clearly stronger and can't mass produce to obscene levels like that.

I used to play VH/H, but now I play H/H. Its balanced, the battles are a challenge, and the campaign is fun.

**Monarch** · 02-08-2006, 18:17

For me, I would like to see a challenge on the back half of a game. I know they tried to surge new life into campaigns with the civil war, but only three factions get that, what about the others. It's in the back end of a campaign where I tend to get a little bored, I'm a big bad superpower and my biggest challenge is how fast I can move my armies around. As you dont have to conquer the whole map, the whole idea that say if I'm seleucids and become a superpower, then one day you'll have to take on the other superpower like Gaul from the otherside of the map is weak imo. That's on RTW. I have BI, and the hordes seem to keep me interested "will they attack me?" etc.

But yeah in M2TW, I want a Mongol horde to come out of nowhere and seriously harm my superpower status. Or something that emerges to keep the challenge up.

Because to be honest, as soon as a gain a stable foothold, there's no stopping a capable human.