Difficulty levels - what do they do? what do you recommend?

[econ21]

I'd be interested to hear anything people have been told or observe about the effect of the various difficulty levels in the game.

In RTW, campaign difficulty seemed to largely affect the income of your enemies - on VH, the AI could often muster repeated full stacks of troops. It was also said that on VH the AI was more hostile to the player - less willing to make alliances or make peace. I am assuming this is still the same in M2TW?

In RTW, battle difficulty worked mainly by upping the stats of the AI units relative to the player's. However, Palamedes has said in a blog that this is not true in M2TW and that instead VH (a) improves the smartness of the AI; (b) increases the impact of morale and fatigue. I am curious about whether (a) is noticeable on below VH - is the AI too dumb on medium? And I am curious about whether (b) the morale and fatigue effects are across the board or skews the effects or the AI relative to the player.

What are players' observations? Do battles on VH feel "unfair" the way they do in RTW (AI peasants trouncing your peasants)? Or do they feel more tactical and more realistic? Do campaigns on VH see multiple AI full stacks bearing down on you? Is M/M too easy or comfortable? Is VH/VH hellishly hard or just the veteran's comfortable choice like expert STW or MTW used to be?

For what it is worth, I liked the historically balanced playing field of Medium battles in RTW but found the AI far too easy to beat. I liked the challenging full AI stacks of VH campaign difficulty. I know others preferred the challenge of VH battles but hated the repetitive battles of VH campaigns.

I realise people's mileage will differ, but we may be able to get some insights from people's impressions. I confess I have an ulterior motive - I want to know what difficulty level to play my first campaign on!

[Lusted]

I've only played 1 battle on vh so far in which i got throuoghly beaten so im getting used to combat on medium atm before going back. Medium is still tough, tougher than RTWs medium, you lose more troops in battle than you woul in RTW.

On VH the ai gets no bonuses, if you do a 1v1 battle of the same unit on vh, equal chances you win and lose(someone else tested this). The ai is just very smart on vh, and completely overwhelmed me when i played it because it did an early well co-ordinated attack which i was not expceting at all, as i am so used to Rtw's ai.

With camapigns, im playing on medium(i think, maybe hard) for my first one and it is still very tough, i think its a good balance. Haven't tried vh yet in campaigns as im still getting used to them.

[econ21]

On VH the ai gets no bonuses, if you do a 1v1 battle of the same unit on vh, equal chances you win and lose(someone else tested this). The ai is just very smart on vh,...

At the risk of posting spam, I must say that just sounds so good Lusted. I'm going out to get my copy this afternoon.

[Lusted]

I know, and it is good, i was smiling with glee after being beaten by the ai because it was such a change form RTw. Just be aware that there is the passive ai bug, hopefully the 0 day patch will be out soon to fix it.

[Maizel]

Maybe they meant 0 day patch, counting from the US release, or even Australian release.

That would be a laugh.

[Bob the Insane]

We have a fairly good idea of what we get for different difficulty levels on the battle field but what about the campaign map?

In RTW on VH the got so much extra cash and such big bonus in naval battles I could never be bothered with it... It was all battle as you could not compete economically let alone try to fight that way...

So what about M2TW, any opinions yet of what hard and very hard get us on the campaign map??

[moonshiner57]

Hello everyone,

as an old MTW veteran who doesn't have the game yet, I'm wondering about the difficulty levels for my first campaign. Now I know that battle difficulty will equally affect morale/fatigue and possibly AI "smartyness" - what are your experiences here? Will a hard / very hard Battle AI clobber you silly? Will a medium Battle AI be a pushover? Or does it matter at all, seeing that both the human and the AI are affected equally by the heigthened morale/fatigue effects?

Same with campaign difficuly - what differences were you able to spot (starting money, diplomacy, stable alliances, etc)?

In RTW I used to go for Campaign hard / Battle medium as I didn't like the artificial bonuses in battles. What setup do you find enjoyable in M2TW?

Thanks for the input!

[Lusted]

Atm im playing on h/h or vh/vh, depending on how much effort im putting into a campaign. Those are the 2 most enjoyable settings i find, as the ai gets no bonuses in battles as is a nice challenge.

[Ludivico Sforza]

After fiddling with difficulties for a while I've settled on campaign medium/battle very hard. Why? At the higher levels of campaign difficulty diplomacy seems to go out of the window and the AI is overly aggresive, medium difficulty just seems more relaistic to me. For the battles, I love the challenge the AI now presents, so VH it is.

[moonshiner57]

Ah, so a medium campaign difficulty sounds about right... I quite enjoy being at peace for a while so hopefully that'll ward off overt AI agression.

In medium vs. very hard battles - do troops tire noticeably faster? Are troops on medium a bunch of never-tiring Lance Armstrongs or do units on very hard collapse before the reach the enemy? How pronounced is that difference?

I figure one could use that advantageously... if you prefer to hunker down and defend your empire, a very hard battle difficulty would work in your favour over time... what with the baddies having to come/run/climb to reach you.

[Scottn72]

Still on my first campaign with the French on M/M, went for medium as I haven't played TW for around a year and figured I'd be a bit rusty.

I guessed right. About 160 turns in and I'm struggling to just keep control of modern day France. Constantly being attacked on all sides.

As for medium battles, slowly starting to get to grip with things again, so for my next campaign I might turn that up to Hard.

The difference in the battle settings is mostly the realism of morale and fatigue. In the manual it states VH as being the most realistic level to fight on.

For your first game, if like me you haven't played for a while go m/m (it's a lot harder than RTW m/m), otherwise try H/H and see how you get on.

[Ludivico Sforza]

In medium vs. very hard battles - do troops tire noticeably faster? Are troops on medium a bunch of never-tiring Lance Armstrongs or do units on very hard collapse before the reach the enemy? How pronounced is that difference?

From what I have noticed so far, the balances between battle difficulty levels are nicely worked out. On medium settings units (yours and the enemies) do tire, but just not as quickly as on VH. On VH, the AI recieves no special treatment. Morale and fatigue are just more realistic (that is not to say medium difficulty is completely unrealistic however). But the major noticeable difference IMO, is that on VH the AI does indeed appear to be at least partly 'intelligent'.

[TinCow]

I am currently playing on H/VH and I am enjoying it a great deal. Regarding battle difficulty, I agree with the other posters. The AI does not seem to be getting much, if any, stat or morale bonuses. I simply feel like I am fighting normal enemy troops, so any difficulty boost must be to the AI. I would urge all TW veterans to play on this difficulty.

Regarding campaign difficulty, I have found Hard to be rather fair. So far I have had major wars with Scotland and France, both of which I started. Scotland I never tried for peace with, but I made several ceasefires with France at various points after trouncing them. The AI was entirely reasonable and paid me tribute for the ceasefire in a realistic way (since I was winning). However, I have now reduced France to two territories in Iberia and they absolutely refuse a ceasefire, even if I offer to pay them 10,000 gold. This makes no sense to me, but is the only unrealistic diplomatic problem I have yet encountered.

I have had a few other unintentional wars with Venice whose origin I cannott seem to figure out. Sometimes I am just randomly informed that I am at war with them. I suspect they are failing spying/assassination attempts and it auto-declaring war on my behalf. This has happened 3 times and each time they immediately accept a ceasefire and pay me for pleasure of it (which makes sense since they are excommunicated, at war with several other nations, and I have a huge military). I have also been at peace with the Turks and Egyptians for almost the entire game, even though I took Antioch from Egypt in the first crusade and have been converting the whole area to Catholicism since then.

I have had very long-term alliances with Denmark and HRE and many shorter alliances with other nations. I have shared a border with Denmark for nearly 80 turns and they have never made an aggressive move towards me and generally have been great neighbours.

My relations with the Pope have been pretty bad, but that\'s my own fault for attacking France when there was a French Pope. I was actually excommunicated for a good 20-30 turns, but no one took advantage of the situation to attack me.

I have noticed that my Relations with all nations are pretty poor, even with my allies. I think this may have something to do with the difficulty level, though it may also be due to the fact that I tend to train my assassins on allied princesses. That said, even with low relations levels, my allies have been rather gracious.

So, all in all Hard campaign difficulty seems to be pretty decent. Other than the near-dead France being unwilling to negotiate (when the not-dead France was willing to negotiate), I haven\'t noticed anything that looked wrong.

[Brighdaasa]

my first campaign was the Turks on VH/VH:

Byz declared war on me as soon as i got a border with them, same for Egypt about 20 turns later. They're not throwing stack after stack at me at a rediculous pace. Diplomacy just does seem impossible, my standings with all factions went to abysmal in no time for no apparent reason.

Battles aren't that hard imho, maybe because of the great archer, mounted archer troups i get and the ai's passivity, the byz and the egypts seem happy to let me shower their main body with arrows halving their numbers. The Mongols gave me quite a challenge tho, with 8-10 star generals and 6xp troops, i lost half a stack against a full stack of mongols. It does a good job of keeping my sipahis horse cav busy.
The AI doesn't seem to get any bonuses, their stats and morale seem about equal to my troops, but it had no counter to my cav and horse archers going round their back (or didn't care to do anything about it) which always leads to utter destruction of their armies. Even the Byz who have great HA's themselves to counter mine.

I started another campaign with the French after getting a good pounding from a few stacks of Mongols, and becuase i needed a change of scenery.

I chose H/VH this time, diplomacy is much better now, i'm securing trading rights and alliances regularly. And about 35 turns in the game only the Milanese declared war on me, it's more relaxed this way imho, it's not just me against the world anymore.

Edit: i haven't tried lower battle difficulties, so i can't compare, but so far the ai is no match for me and i don't consider myself a tactical genius, i lost the majorty of the mp battles i played in MTW:VI

[Comrade Alexeo]

So, I just picked up my preorder of M2TW (with the History Channel DVD ), and I'm about to install it and go through the tutorial, flip through the manual, etc.

I'll then start a Grand Campaign. I plan to go with VH Battle difficulty because I want a challenge from the AI, but I would like to know what those of you already playing think is the best setting for Campaign difficulty.

I'm going to do the HRE, and so I realize that I'll obviously be facing quite a bit of opposition - but nevertheless I'm not really in the mood for EVERYONE to hate me at the same time, a la RTW. I'd like to at least be able to make an alliance, get a few ceasefires, hopefully not have swarms of inquisitors, etc., which is the impression I'm getting of VH. On the other hand though, I don't want everyone to try and become my vassal on the first turn either.

Think of it as, say, like diplomacy is in Civilization 2 or something; difficult on occassion, perhaps, but realistic. I'm a TW vet, and so I consider myself a reasonably competent player, but I want M2TW to remain a game - not a slog.

Any advice?

[Molinaargh]

I started my first campaign with the French on VH/VH, thinking it would be as easy as RTW's VH/VH or MTW's Expert (althought the latter depends heavily on the faction you choose).

I started by taking a few rebel cities and building up - Bordeaux, Dijon, Metz. I merried my princess to the English heir, they respected the alliance for a long time. The Milanese weren't as peaceful, tough, and decided to attack me. After a few battles (all wins) I took a province from them.

That's when I stopped winning the game.

They sent various armies in many directions, sieged Merseilles, Dijon, and the Holy Roman Empire, their allies, sieged Metz and the Switzerland province.

The English decided it was a good opportunity to fight me, as well. Turn 27: they sieged and conquered Paris. Yes, they conquered my capital.

I had to move the armies fighting against the Milanese to retake Paris, I broke the siege of Merseilles and Dijon, but the Germans took Metz and have huge armies coming at me. The Milanese are a bit more quiet right now, but will strike again soon.

When I thought things couldn't get worse, they did.

A Moorish ship appeared near Toulouse, and from the ship came a full stack, commanded by a decent general.

I'm on turn 30 right now, and, although battles are dumb and poor, as you will only lose if you are really outnumbered, the campaign AI is kicking my ass.

I recommend playing a VH/VH campaign, mine is being very challenging, I'll be very proud if I survive against all my enemies.

[Rothe]

How about autoresolving battles on different difficulty settings?

I find that I often autoresolve battles that I surely will win by numbers (10:1 odds or the like) to save time. If I play VH/VH, I would not want to find out that the autoresolve suddenly becomes unreasonably poor and I lose too many troops to it.

[Molinaargh]

How about autoresolving battles on different difficulty settings?

I find that I often autoresolve battles that I surely will win by numbers (10:1 odds or the like) to save time. If I play VH/VH, I would not want to find out that the autoresolve suddenly becomes unreasonably poor and I lose too many troops to it.

I only autoresolved 2 battles so far, both against rebels, and got very reasonable results. The odds must have been about 3:1.

The problem is that part of the rebel army survived and kept bothering me, instead of disappearing completely.

[Slaists]

By the way, the "official strategy guide" says that AI does get combat bonuses on hard and very hard battle settings... The developer blog appears to say the opposite. In my experience, the VH battles are not "that hard" to suggest any AI combat bonuses, but then again - I have faced only rebels so far... And the passive AI bug does not seem to help them either.

[Slaists]

By the way, has anyone noticed that the "official strategy guide" states that the AI DOES HAVE combat bonuses on H and VH settings. Could be a "strategy guide bug" though... And, in my experience, if there are any AI combat bonuses, I have not noticed them.

[Derfel von Saljeth]

Do the other factions receive bonus cash every turn (like RTW) or just play more offesive in VH campaigns?

In my games, i like to destroy enemy faction economy (blockading ports, conquering/sacking/destroyng their cities and then leave....) while winning battles...

[Turpitudo]

I made the experience that the ai uses big stacks to attack you. This is no problem at all, but it seems that they have the money to manage several big stacks. E.g. Playing as Hungary Byzantium is normaly attacking in the first 20 turns, as Venice will also do (and if you are unlucky HRE too). Both manage to fight a two front war with their other neighbours and build up their cities. But I guess it is not a very high cash bonus they get, as you still get the cash information, that they are sometimes bankrupt.

Destroying the enemies economie never worked for me (in the short run, meaning the next 20 turns), as the ai always tends to have enough money to create fresh troops.

[Quillan]

If you've noticed in the finances screen, there is a category called "King's Purse". This seems to be a flat rate of cash you get every turn, regardless of farming, taxes, or trade setup. It varies from faction to faction, and may well vary with difficulty level also. I have no idea if it varies for the same faction when controlled by the player or the AI.

[Hashashiyyin]

From my campaigns, it does seem like the AI get a static cash bonus every round on the higher difficulty levels. They do appear to me more aggressive as well. I wish CA would give us the option to turn up AI w/o just letting it cheat. I find M/M to be untastefully easy but I've hated cheating AI's since I started going to the arcade when I was 8.

The AI cheats on VH battles as well. I had a single "generals bodyguard" unit almost whip out two spear militias, two heavy horse archers, and my own general's bodyguard unit. This was while they were flanked, they get such a massive moral bonus that all they do is fight to the death (not the "I'm surrounded and will fight to the death" flashing red flag, but they have so much moral they just never route or stop fighting at their peak). I've heard that the VH battle was suppost to just be "most realistic" in terms of fatigue and moral, which might be true for your troops, but the AI get such a huge moral bonus it's not that fun to fight.

As far as a VH campaign goes, I started a turk VH/VH and was doing ok untill the 20th turn or so. The byzantines attacked 3 of my cites with 2.5 stacks and at this point I could barely afford 1 stack. so it's pretty clear that they were getting a good amount of extra cash to be able to afford all those troops. Although, they don't appear to be able to build up their cites much faster, so it could be money only for troops or an upkeep/recruitment reduction. Also if you keep an eye on the enemies agents, you'll notice they normally are at +8-10 skill while you'll still have all your agents at +1-3. I'd like a challenge, just not cheating. In RTW the AI got an extra 10,000 gold PER TURN! now think about it, how easy would even a VH/VH campaign be if you cheated as well and just "add_money" 10,000 florins per turn? sad, sad AI.

I'd recomend M/M if you want a campaign and battles where your not at a disadvantage simple because of a cheating AI. Although M/M is so easy that you might not have fun, so a H/H campaign might be the way to go since the AI only sorta cheats at that point.