Rtw/bi

[caravel]

Well so far I've had a CTD, after an 'epic' battle, I've shaken my head in disbelief at the stupidity of the AI and have seen my best general whom I had spent hours training up (playing as Parthia) charge a formation of Selucid Hoplites without orders and dying instantly.

Then there was my sortie that, under siege sallied forth, to attack a battering ram crew of archers, routed them and then pulled back through the gates leaving half the unit stuck behind the ram running at it, but not around it, despite being well outnumbered, and the enemy having HA's I won that one as well with my own HA's and slingers (I really do like those slingers for some reason!).

Next up was my 'great victory' uphill outnumbered 10 to 1 against the Armenians who suddenly decided to wreck my empire. I thought I had lost it, but repeatedly charges from my generals unit of 30 men, and a few of my HA's (vs their 800+ eastern infantry, general and horse archers) won the day, with the enemy routing in all directions. Surprising as in MTW or STW it would have been all over for me in most cases.

By this time my morale was shot, never mind the army's. The Scythians then attacked my northmost province after a long time of piece, and sent a huge army against my more central provinces. After another few battles my few Cataphracts and many horse archers smashed through these, and my forces advanced into Armenian and Scythian territory laying seige to their provinces.

After this, tired of finding annoying brigands everywhere and the level of micromanagment involved (constantly moving my forces from a to b and back again). Combine that with the poor battle AI, I began to feel I was playing some kind of civ game where the classic TW real time battle engine was a bit of an afterthought.

Should I try the "very hard" difficulty for the battles instead of hard? Or just forget it and download RTR?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I went back to MTW after that and continued my Turks/High/Hard campaign.