which battle difficulty is most fair for me and the AI?

[guineawolf]

which battle difficulty is most fair for me and the AI?

i mean which difficulty will add no combat and morale bonusto both sides??? (so i can play fairly enough...)

[redriver]

medium

[guineawolf]

really?coz i read from MTW FAQ that their medium difficulty still add some morale bonus to human player,i afraid that RTW will have same standard?

[Archer of Sparta]

When I had vanilla I used to play on hard, it gives the AI some bonuses but doesn't make it that easy for you.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi guineawolf,
Unfortunately, in this regard, Medieval: Total War is a completely different game to Rome: Total War. In Medieval: Total War no attack bonuses, morale penalties or fatigue penalties are granted to the AI or the player. Instead the AI is more or less intelligent based upon the difficulty settings - this made it, in a way, fair to both sides. However, in Rome, the AI is not effected by difficulty settings and, instead, on easy it grants you a bonus, on normal it grants no bonuses, on hard it grants the AI a small bonus and on very hard it grants the AI huge bonuses which are very unrealistic. So, with no bonuses or penalties to your or the AI Normal is the way to go. Hope this helps you, cheers!

[Dexter]

if i may suggest, play 10 - 15 turns on hardest so if you manage to find the weak spots of the enemy you can play relatively easy on medium ...
my current campagne is on medium Julii - had lot of fun fighting the full gaul army ... needles to say who whom the battles :P

just a something i experienced ... wen attacking take only half as many man whit you as the enemy has .. the general will be called Victor in no time - i use largest unit size -

[caravel]

Hi guineawolf,
Unfortunately, in this regard, Medieval: Total War is a completely different game to Rome: Total War. In Medieval: Total War no attack bonuses, morale penalties or fatigue penalties are granted to the AI or the player. Instead the AI is more or less intelligent based upon the difficulty settings - this made it, in a way, fair to both sides.

In MTW there was a +1 morale bonus for the AI on expert and a +1 morale bonus for the player on easy. Apart from that there are supposed to be no other bonuses, but this is often debatable.

I play RTW battles on normal and MTW on hard, because I hate hidden bonuses either way.

As to the campaign difficulty it's on normal at present, what would people suggest?

[guineawolf]

then,i will thanks for suggestion from you guys,i think i will play in normal mode then.
after that i will play in hard or very hard mode for my favourite Scipii(coz that wolve logo suited me,and my favourite color is blue and white)skyblue
and Scipii got lvl3 weapon and lvl3 armor(of coz i would say brutii are the best in romans,coz that +1morale bonus)

many thanks!!!

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi Caravel,
In R:TW, I would suggest VH on the campaign map - it's the only setting which, if you are playing as the great Roman, the other Roman factions are not guarenteed to take over so easily. On VH I've seen the Julii, they were simply invaded, the Brutii, they lost their whole family to the Greeks, and the Senate, who were wiped out also by Gaul. In efect Rome was united just under me - the Scipii. However, not for long, Carthage and Gaul, united with full stack of Swordsmen and Elephants, wiped me out within four turns and I was destroyed. That was the most challenging campaign I have ever experienced, very fun!

[econ21]

As to the campaign difficulty it's on normal at present, what would people suggest?

VH campaigns (M battles) is my preference. The VH campaigns gives AI factions 10,000 gold per turn. That helps offset the players superior economic management and rate of expansion, and it means you should get to fight full AI stacks. This somewhat offsets the strategic AIs weakness - it's tendency to passivity and failure to concentrate (playing with the BI exe also helps here). It can give you a moderating challenging game if you adopt some houserules (e.g. a "no retraining" rule, use historical/balanced armies and maybe avoid always using full stacks yourself.) Some people get tired of repeatedly fighting full stacks, but I have never found it excessive - I fight may be half a dozen per faction max , which does not seem too much. I like the big battles - it's repeated petty small encounters that grate. EB tops up the AI coffers much more and still is not excessive.

Another complaint with VH campaigns is that the AI is psycho and usually attacks you, but again I've never really found that a big deal. I don't play TW for the diplomacy. And we ended up having a long period of peace with neighbouring Iberia in our VH Rome RTR PBM - it only ended when we attacked them.

One minor difference is that apparently on VH, rebels will besiege your settlements. But I've never found that an issue as I set rebel spawn to 100, as I hate fighting tiny stacks of rebels.

[caravel]

Hmmm now I'm confused. [stupid]Is there a 'medium' as well as a 'normal'?[/stupid]

Thanks, Omanes and econ21, my next campaign will be on VH, though apart from the greater aggression of the AI and it's large cash bonuses in what other respects is it superior?

(I need to change the spawn rate to get rid of some of those brigand as well!! I've been meaning to do that for ages, but keep forgetting it.)

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi again Caravel,
Unfortuantely, the other ways it makes it harder are not really superior, yet a little more, shall we say, annoying. Diplomacy is impossible - factions will never accept your proposals, despite how clever they may be, and will very rarley offer you anything generous. Also auto-resolve battles are hevily biased in the favour of the foes and you wil probably never get a Heroic or a Clear Victory out of them - it's always better to play out your battles in this respect. Sadly, although the AI provides a harder challange, it also can negitivly effect the way things work. However, whenever I offer my foes anything which I beleive is resonable, I use the force diplomacy cheat and the the auto win cheat, which can alleviate some of these nasty and unfair problems. Hope this help you, cheers!

[guineawolf]

Hi Caravel,
In R:TW, I would suggest VH on the campaign map - it's the only setting which, if you are playing as the great Roman, the other Roman factions are not guarenteed to take over so easily. On VH I've seen the Julii, they were simply invaded, the Brutii, they lost their whole family to the Greeks, and the Senate, who were wiped out also by Gaul. In efect Rome was united just under me - the Scipii. However, not for long, Carthage and Gaul, united with full stack of Swordsmen and Elephants, wiped me out within four turns and I was destroyed. That was the most challenging campaign I have ever experienced, very fun!

YOU ARE REALLY HAVING FUN!!!COZ I AM THE 1 START GET TIRED KEEP WINNING BATTLES!!I NEVER GET WIPED OUT(I THINK I MEAN BEING OVERWHELM,IF YOU PLAYED STARCRAFT BEFORE,YOU WILL KNOW WHAT OVERWHELM MEAN:100MARINES BEING SURROUNDED AND GET WIPED OUT BY ZERGLINGS=I SUGGEST YOU GO WATCH STARCRAFT:GHOST MOVIE AT WWW.YOUTUBE.COM. ,SEARCH STARCRAFT) BY AI SINCE MY FIRST CAMPAIGN.......

[caravel]

Well I've started a new campaign as Parthia on Very Hard campaign map difficulty and Medium battle difficulty. I'll see how it goes. So far I've conquered one settlement to the west (beging with a 'P' I think, forgot it's name), killed quite a lot of annoying brigands (I need to fix this later today), and have begun to advance south. Economy is stale though, any tips on that? I've made alliances and trade rights, so far with the Scythians, Seleucids, Armenians and Pontus.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Sadly, when it comes to income, Parthia's only option is to conquer to win something decent. The Selucids are a good target for early expansion as their units are slow and have no chance of defending themselves against your grand arrow attacks with their hopelessly small shields. Also taking over the Selucids, and paying your allies tribute to stay in your pact, will restrict the expansion of Armenia and Pontus - they, being blocked off by your Parthian territories, will not dare expand into your lands in fear of losing the tribute. This will leave them poor and weak enabling you to focus on any larger wars you may have with other more mighty factions. However, you have to act fast! From my experiences, unless Parthia expands quickly and beats it's Western neighbours to parts of the collapsing Seleucid empire, it's chances of a decent future are, sadly, very small. Hope this helps you, cheers!

[caravel]

Sadly, when it comes to income, Parthia's only option is to conquer to win something decent. The Selucids are a good target for early expansion as their units are slow and have no chance of defending themselves against your grand arrow attacks with their hopelessly small shields. Also taking over the Selucids, and paying your allies tribute to stay in your pact, will restrict the expansion of Armenia and Pontus - they, being blocked off by your Parthian territories, will not dare expand into your lands in fear of losing the tribute. This will leave them poor and weak enabling you to focus on any larger wars you may have with other more mighty factions. However, you have to act fast! From my experiences, unless Parthia expands quickly and beats it's Western neighbours to parts of the collapsing Seleucid empire, it's chances of a decent future are, sadly, very small. Hope this helps you, cheers!

So regrettably war with the Seleucids is inevitable... Thinking about it I should have avoided an alliance with them. I have played a campaign as Parthia in the past and ended up at war with all of my neighbours apart from Armenia my ally, then they turned traitor and attacked.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Unfortunately, in R:TW the AI is, well, let's say, rather stupid when it comes to diplomacy. The only way that an alliance can be forged and generally stuck too is through tributes. The AI, if payed a reasonable tribute, along with an alliance, will generally not be hostile and will, most of the time, leave you alone and shall remain as your allies. Sadly, this is not law and, of course, there always are nasty exceptions.

[LuckyDog Trojan]

Unfortunately, in R:TW the AI is, well, let's say, rather stupid when it comes to diplomacy. The only way that an alliance can be forged and generally stuck too is through tributes. The AI, if payed a reasonable tribute, along with an alliance, will generally not be hostile and will, most of the time, leave you alone and shall remain as your allies. Sadly, this is not law and, of course, there always are nasty exceptions.

There are definitely exceptions! (In my current Parthian campaign where I've just entered the 'end game' phase)... After an alliance of nearly a hundred years with the Seleucids, they have attacked. That didn't surprise me. But, in the following turn, after providing them with a very wealthy war chest full of goodies in return for a renewal of the alliance, they turned around and betrayed me again! Treacherous ingrates! Shame on me. They are now toast. I had hoped to actually win a campaign by keeping an ally the entire time. Oh well. As you say, Omanes, the AI diplomacy is... well... never mind.

Caravel: Good Luck! Starting out with Parthia on VH with all their economic short-comings will pose some challenges. Conquer everyone to your immediate west and grab some of the seaports as soon as you can. As you know, the Egyptians will soon come courting... ...

[caravel]

Caravel: Good Luck! Starting out with Parthia on VH with all their economic short-comings will pose some challenges. Conquer everyone to your immediate west and grab some of the seaports as soon as you can. As you know, the Egyptians will soon come courting... ...

Well, VH campaign difficulty is nothing short of lunacy. It ups the aggression factor and nothing else. As a result I now have Armenian and Scythian generals going it alone to besiege my settlements. I'm wondering how long my alliance with the Seleucid will last, not long probably. The diplomacy is nothing short of pathetic. When I attacked Armenia, the Scythians chose to continue allied with me instead of them. The next year the Scythians attacked me. Now the Armenians are sending bigger and bigger army stacks into my lands, giving several battles every turn which is getting tiring. Not good for a player that likes to turtle most campaigns. I'm thinking that I may continue on M or H with some self imposed rules. I could deal with harder battles quite easily, though the morale bonus farce is very off putting.

[Ludens]

In MTW there was a +1 morale bonus for the AI on expert and a +1 morale bonus for the player on easy. Apart from that there are supposed to be no other bonuses, but this is often debatable.

Actually, there is an old post by a CA developer stating that there is a slight stat increase at hard, and a somewhat bigger one at expert. From a few tests run at hard I can confirm its existence, but it is really very slight, just enough to ensure the A.I. will generally win when all circumstances are equal.

[Stuperman]

One minor difference is that apparently on VH, rebels will besiege your settlements. But I've never found that an issue as I set rebel spawn to 100, as I hate fighting tiny stacks of rebels.

speaking of that, First time this has ever happened to me, not a bad stack either (1 equites general, 4 srmatian merc's, +some skirmishers and peasants).

[IMG][/IMG]

vanilla + cheaper/faster roads, and paved roads for easterners, VH/H Mundus Magnus 1.2 (I think). the start of my "Empre".

I have a legion sailing from Caralis to deal with those rebels, and have taken control of Sicily, with carthage in my sights.

sorry for the whole off topic thing.

[Praetorian101]

Recently I started out playing BI. I used to play RTW but that was a couple of months ago so I was a bit clueless at the beginning still I immediately started out on VH/VH because I was used to that.

Results:

Francs: got wiped out pretty soon... I didn't stand a chance (also due to a bad starting position).

Sassanids: Good starting position, some kind cataphract as general bodyguards... I couldnt lose.

Allemani: still playing, at the start my faith was similar with the Francs, I got driven off my homelands, but this time I managed to take a small city further up north which I succesfully defended. I destroyed the Saxons and took their lands, from there I expanded my territory. I now have about 13 regions and 100K denarii (which definitely has some very negative effects on my family members).

Saxons: This was an easy one and a lot of fun too. I knew what I had to do because I played the francs, Sassanids and Allemani already, so I was in good shape again.

At the start I allied with a couple of reliable factions (which lasted very long by the way). I also knew I had to look for a weak prey: Burgundii was an excellent target... The first attack attempt failed but after that I sailed a fleet full with Saxon Keel to their capital .

I didnt even land the troops or they asked me for an agreement . That was fine with me, because my real target was Londium (the financial key of north Europe)... Still Burgundii had to pay up if they wanted to live. Which they did after a few payments they were broke .

I took Londium (and the other city further up north) but at the same time the Romans invaded my lands, they also asked for an agreement (they wouldn't attack if I gave them back one of their cities in Britannia which I just conquered). I said no and decided to take my chances. I managed to fight off the Romans although it was a close 1. After that I was strong and conquered the Romans in some instances I even bribed their armies and some cities.