What difficulty level do you play at?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Garvanko]

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]

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.

[x-dANGEr]

What always has been boring about R:TW/BI is that whenever you reach 15 cities with stable status and strong economy, it's a matter of time more of a challenge.