Which difficulty setting??

[ryanwigginton]

I'm 65 turns into a hard battle/hard AI game right now. and fought 44 battles, lost 16. Seems as though it's still very much in favour of me winning. Thinking of going to Vhard/Vhard but don't want to give the enemy an unfair advantage.

My question is...

if I go Vhard/Vhard does the enemy have any unfair advantages or is it just smarter AI. If I charge spearmen against spearmen and the enemy always wins then that wouldn't be right. I just want as balanced a game as possible, where the enemy has as much chance of winning as I do all things given equal and without giving my opponent 'extra strength' units.

[Kobal2fr]

Campaign diff really means "everyone gangs up on you", without the AI getting any advantage.

Battle AI means relatively smarter strategical AI (operative word being "relatively" ), more stuff for you to deal with (fatigue and morale) and DEADLY tactical AI. Sending spearmen against spearmen is likely to net a loss for you, but not because the AI ones have better stats, only because the AI can micro its units (all of them, all the time too) way better that you can, taking advantage of every single piece of statistical advantage it can get from terrain, weather, precise positionning, it knows when and how to withdraw to recharge, at what range to charge etc... whereas you and I have to rely on fuzzy knowledge and rough guidelines.

It's not cheating per se, and if you have an obvious strategical advantage you ARE going to win a fight between two statistically equivalent units, but all other things being equal the AI's probably gonna get a narrow victory out of a 50/50 on paper, out of micro alone.

[ryanwigginton]

But they won't have 'superhuman' strength... just smarter right? In that case I might try hard campaign/vhard battle AI

[Kobal2fr]

Yup, they're just regular guys.

[Shahed]

H/VH seems to be the way to go.

[ryanwigginton]

'Campaign diff really means "everyone gangs up on you", without the AI getting any advantage.' - I agree with Kobals comment it seems on H campaign setting all the other nations would rather fight you than be neutral or make an alliance. It does get a bit annoying in that respect. I'll give M/VH a try I think...

[Alsn]

So far ive been largely unimpressed by VH/VH. The campaign difficutly just means that after a while everone is going to hate you with a passion(aka refuse alliances and gang up on you) while the battle difficulty just makes the AI less stupid(aka it does less obvious "we programmed this so that it would make it easier to beat" things but some things are still really stupid, like siege battles).

[Nebuchadnezzar]

On VH both campaign & battle AI get bonuses (or player penalties) and since CA hasn't commented on them I am guessing they are trying to conceal it so that players like to believe they are on equal playing field when in actual fact it is not.

Battle map: Player gets a 1-2 second penalty delay with cavalry. I can see the AI doesn't get it b/c the moment I use my mouse to issue new orders their units instantaneously change direction whereas mine are temporarily in limbo with the compulsory 2 sec delay.

Campaign map: AI gets insta-generals (captains magically turning to generals), 3x recruitment bonus (agents & maybe units), no crusade desertions, huge cash bonuses and maybe public order bonuses as well. I'm sure there are others. The player penalties include Dogs of War diplomacy, Reputation penalties, Score rank penalties, illogical AI (band together) alliances and a few more that I can't remember ATM.

Even though, VH/VH is the only way to go

[Csargo]

I'm 65 turns into a hard battle/hard AI game right now. and fought 44 battles, lost 16. Seems as though it's still very much in favour of me winning. Thinking of going to Vhard/Vhard but don't want to give the enemy an unfair advantage.

My question is...

if I go Vhard/Vhard does the enemy have any unfair advantages or is it just smarter AI. If I charge spearmen against spearmen and the enemy always wins then that wouldn't be right. I just want as balanced a game as possible, where the enemy has as much chance of winning as I do all things given equal and without giving my opponent 'extra strength' units.

I'm playing M/VH with the English it's around turn 35-40. I haven't had the campaign AI gang up on me the only faction that's attacked me is France() Scotland's got a small army just north of York, but their not doing anything atm plus I have an alliance with Scotland.

The VH battles are very fun for me it doesn't seem as though the AI gets unfair advantages to me at least. Though the siege AI is kinda screwy, but still it's turning out to be a fun campaign.

If I was you I'de probably go with M/VH or H/VH those seem like the best choices.

[Ciaran]

As far as I understand it, on VH battle difficulty the player suffers basicaly the same morale and fatigure effects that the AI gets on any difficulty, the lower the difficulty, the less these effects come into play for the player.

On the campaign map I´ve found M to be the way to go, the diplomacy is geared towards a neutral standing which makes diplomacy a somewhat effective tool, you´ll still witness some odd behaviour, though.

[econ21]

As far as I understand it, on VH battle difficulty the player suffers basicaly the same morale and fatigure effects that the AI gets on any difficulty, the lower the difficulty, the less these effects come into play for the player.

That's the official CA line, so far as I can make out from Palamedes's blog a while back, but personally I doubt it. On VH, I have not noticed the enemy give up the ghost and rout easily from exhaustion or low morale. By contrast, I have observed that with my own men - particularly militia - if I try to get them to do something a little tough, like storm a hill.

I strongly suspect the impact of morale and fatigue on VH is asymmetric between the player. If it was not, as I said before the game came out, raising the effect of morale and fatigue would make it easier for the player - because we are better than the AI at contriving a chain rout and resting our men.

My feeling based on playing VH is that fatigue is not a big issue for the AI - they can march across the map and attack up hill without noticeably being weaker than if they had started deployed at the bottom of the hill. I've never noticed AI fatigue as a factor whereas it was crippling in RTW (and all mods that did not switch it off).

I also think on VH, the AI morale is pretty high - quite similar to EB and markedly higher than vanilla RTW morale (with all its insta-routs). Even lowly AI militia fight fairly well. To rout them you have to kill a lot in frontal combat or contrive some special morale penalties from flanking or missile fire etc.

By contrast, on VH, I have to worry about my own units' fatigue more than I have ever done in a TW game (except for being in the desert in MTW). My morale is ok, although there is a marked difference between militia and decent troops in that respect. You can't expect militia to march up a hill Bunker Hill style and take it against decent opposition, despite numbers. A good general can compensate to a degree, of course.

This is all just my impression and conjectures. It would be interesting if a CA staffer could comment. Perhaps Lusted or Brandybarrel or one of the other players in regular contact with CA could get more information on this.

[Ciaran]

If it was not, as I said before the game came out, raising the effect of morale and fatigue would make it easier for the player - because we are better than the AI at contriving a chain rout and resting our men.

True as long as the AI is affected in the same way as the player. My suspicion, however, is that difficulty does not influence the effect on the AI units, they always get the same effect. Only the player´s units are affected stronger on higher difficulties. It fits with what I´ve observed so far on different difficulty settings. Of course I don´t know for sure - none of us really does, after all, to the best of my knowledge.

[econ21]

Ah, ok - I think we are more or less in agreement: increasing the difficulty affects the impact of morale and fatigue on the player, not the AI. I did not read your post well enough.

Back on topic: I can recommend VH. Unlike earlier TW titles, like for like unit match ups are not noticeably skewed to the AI. And the morale/fatigue penalties for the player do not feel unrealistic or too frustrating.

[ryanwigginton]

I'm playing M/VH with the English it's around turn 35-40. I haven't had the campaign AI gang up on me the only faction that's attacked me is France() Scotland's got a small army just north of York, but their not doing anything atm plus I have an alliance with Scotland.

The VH battles are very fun for me it doesn't seem as though the AI gets unfair advantages to me at least. Though the siege AI is kinda screwy, but still it's turning out to be a fun campaign.

If I was you I'de probably go with M/VH or H/VH those seem like the best choices.

Well... M/VH is a very balanced feeling game. No longer is it England versus the rest of the world. I'll probably go on to complete like this.

Thanks for all your replies.

[Lusted]

This is all just my impression and conjectures. It would be interesting if a CA staffer could comment. Perhaps Lusted or Brandybarrel or one of the other players in regular contact with CA could get more information on this.

As far as i can tell the increased effects of morale and fatique affect both the ai and player equally, as i've seen ai units tire just as easily as mine, and rout just as easily as mine. This is on VH.

[econ21]

As far as i can tell the increased effects of morale and fatique affect both the ai and player equally, as i've seen ai units tire just as easily as mine, and rout just as easily as mine. This is on VH.

OK, so why are greater effects of morale and fatigue for both the AI and the human supposed to make the battles harder? (Sorry for phrasing the question so baldly, Lusted: I am not doubting you and know it's CAs call not yours, but I am genuinely puzzled.)

Is it just the inverse of the "arcade mode" logic: less stuff to worry about makes an easier game?

[Lusted]

OK, so why are greater effects of morale and fatigue for both the AI and the human supposed to make the battles harder?

You can't just run your troops around the battlefield and just not worry about morale. You have to think about both more.

[econ21]

OK, so it is the same reasoning that motivated the "arcade mode" - the scales fall from my eyes.