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

[econ21]

My VH/VH English campaign is providing a very nice military challenge - not too easy, but not too hard. There are no clearly unfair unit match ups, nor repetitious AI hordes as RTW VH/VH can sometimes deliver.

But as the last poster say, it has almost no diplomatic angle. All neighbours attack me without good cause and the Pope thinks hell is too good for me. I'll definitely be trying H/VH next to see if that improves the diplomacy.

[Beefeater]

All of the 10 or so games I have played so far are on H/H. On this level I have not found the AI to be too aggressive, and have scored some notable ceasefires.

Example (from my ongoing England vignette game - haven't posted a report for this yet): I had 'Outstanding' relations with France before going to war with them. Wartime relations after I took Angers and Paris were 'Terrible' but not 'Abysmal'.

In the same turn as capturing Angers and Paris, I offered a ceasefire in return for Bordeaux. Bordeaux had only maybe 2-3 units defending it as the French had just lost a large part of their army to (I think) the Milanese near Dijon, and had lost their other big stack (around 800 men in a normal-size units game) trying and failing to dislodge me from my siege of Paris.

Ceasefire for Bordeaux - Demanding. I wondered if this would work and offered 1600 florins + ceasefire for Bordeaux, and it went to Generous. They accepted gratefully and our relations improved to 'So-so'. I took Bordeaux without a fight, and they got cash and a turn or two of peace with me that they can use to try to hold off the Milanese. Everyone wins.

I'm planning to move up to VH/VH for all future vignette games, but will stabilise at H/VH if the campaign map becomes too much of a jungle.

[Dooz]

I wonder what significant differences there are between M and H campaigns. I think I prefer medium because of the extra reliability of alliances and generally longer periods of peace if desired, not too many random AI attacks. Other than more AI aggression, does H or VH do anything else for the AI? More money? Better units? Smarter?

[Arifel]

I've played with Medium, Hard, and Very Hard battlefield difficulties. And frankly, I've not noticed any difference between them. The Medium difficult AI is smart enough to route 4 of my town militia units with a single Bodyguard unit by repeatedly charging and withdrawing, and the Very Hard doesn't seem to do anything extra or anything more impressive. I just leave it on Very Hard now.

In terms of Campaign difficulty, I've only played with Medium and Hard. The difference seems to be that relationships deteriate faster on Hard, also the AI is more capable of sending multiple stack armies your way. I didn't notice any difference with agents, assassins gang up on my generals the same way they do in Medium difficulty. And still none of my generals can resist the Vatican deep fryer.

[Basileus]

On VH/VH Ai seems to build alot more troops and diplomacy is harder, you realy need to send gifts to your neighbours each turn heh if you want to stay away from a war with. Ive only played VH with battles so i cant comment on that.

[Reapz]

I have just completed a few games playing Scotland on m/m, h/h, h/vh and vh/vh.

A few observations:

It is a great game and the developers should be well pleased with themselves. I am sure I will spend hundreds of hours absorbed.

The difference between levels of difficulty is not so apparent as it was in RTW. The difference was readily apparent in Rome because the AI factions seemed to mass produce units at higher difficulty levels and this doesn't happen in M2. I am glad it doesn't. I have hated this type of "advanced AI" since battling the Hojo hordes playing Shogun.

In my games I perceived the AI factions had a lower threshold for declaring war on me on harder settings.

I was excommunicated quickly, inquisitioned and promptly had unrest in my cities several times on vh/vh for not following instructions from the Pope. The follow up for not behaving well on m/m didn't seem so aggressive - anyone notice this?

There is a general problem with the AI on all difficulty levels. It seems whole AI stack armies will sit back and let you seige and sack cities when they have a decent shot at beating my invading forces or certainly seriously weakening them. I wish the AI would attack me when I invade and threaten cities.

I would write more but I'm too busy campaigning!

[Fookison]

I usually play the campaign on M and the battles on VH. That way I have a chance to enjoy the boardgame portion with less frustration on trying to hang onto my florins and I can still enjoy the strategy of the AI in the VH battles....

[shifty157]

I play VH/VH. I can confirm that the AI is much stricter about what it chooses to accept. Often youll have to give it an offer verging on generous for it to actually accept. Also be aware that unless you are considerably more powerful than an AI faction, it wont want anything to do with you so it can be very difficult to gain alliances until youre one of the top factions and even then the other top factions wont even consider it.

Also on VH/VH the AI is very quick to attack. You get almost no peace which is very frustrating if you want to try and focus on other aspects of your empire (like constructing those really expensive buildings youve always wanted but never had the extra cash for or trying to gain more than one or two crosses out of ten with the pope). The really annoying part though is that it leaves no room for unusual campaign strategies (like sending an army or two across the map to start up mini-empires where they land) because you have to always be ready for war on your borders which will generally come to you within ten turns regardless of how large your border armies are or how weak the aggressor is. Really the vast majority of my expansion has been retaliatory against factions that attacked me first. Only once or twice have i actually declared war on a faction of my own initiative.

The pope is also very harsh. I find it very difficult to have any real standing with the pope because everyone else just keeps attacking me and i keep losing standing because of it. Ive tried dumping my income into churches and priests (when i get a breather from constant war) but i find that i may only gain two or three crosses max out of it at which point another faction attacks me and i lose it all again.

As for battles, i find them very enjoyable. I can confirm that the AI doesnt get any obviously noticeable advantages. EVerything seems completely fair. I can also say that i take alot more casualties than i did in RTW. Gone are the days when i could get heroic victories time after time. I think ive only gotten one heroic victory so far. I was defending a settlement and at the end of the battle i was left with less than 10 men. In fact it seems that i take so many casualties that i now generally try to avoid battles that can be avoided where i dont have a considerable advantage because i dont want to spend the time and money on rebuilding my heavily depleted army. Especially when im seiging a settlement if the AI has more than a half stack of decent troops ill generally just wait it out because trying to replace all the casualties i take in the battle while continuing the offensive would be a logistical nightmare. Not to mention i really dont have the cash to rapidly replace casualties on a constant basis.

Thats the other major difference im finding. I dont have the droves of money that i had in Rome. In RTW once my empire was became medium sized i would be getting more money than i would know what to do with. Not so anymore. In fact i find myself desperate for more cash consistently every turn. I try every turn to begin construction of a building in every settlement that has an empty queue. In Rome i met this goal very easily but now i dont have nearly enough cash for that. Instead im trying to make the decision of blowing my entire income on a single really expensive building or spread it out a bit more on two or three other settlements (2 or 3 other settlements out of the 7 or 8 that have an empty build queue). Every turn i keep thinking that if i can take a few more settlements then the extra income will break me through my cash constraints and reach that position like in Rome where i didnt have to worry about money anymore but every time i expand i find my armies and other expenses expanding just as much and keep me in my relative poverty. I have to say that i really hate it but for however much i hate not having enough cash i wouldnt want the game to be any other way.

[Reapz]

Shifty

When you reported "on VH/VH the AI is very quick to attack" I find that applies in terms of the AI initiating hostilities or starting wars. However in the behavior of individual AI armies once they start a war the individual armies still seem passive in ignoring my seiges on vh/vh.