Handgunners in Expert difficulty games

[Caerfanan]

I can defeat, because I will gain valour more quickly than on Hard. If this is indeed the case, then what about AI faction units that fight each other on Expert? Wouldn’t this exploit make the AI units “valour up” more quickly than on Hard as well? Then my units are fighting more powerful AI units than I could hope to meet on Hard. Doesn’t sound like an exploit to me.

Well, I don't know, maybe the AI is "valouring up" its units as it want anyway, whatever the level? But you have a point there.

Besides, when I have set up a battle that I knew I could win, the AI retreated from the province. In battles where the AI cannot retreat and must fight, they already get +8 morale, even on Hard.
I recommend playing on Expert to everyone and remain, humbly, unconvinced.

This is, IMHO a tough case, the AI probably takes the morale stuff in account. But I rememeber when i was a TW "kid" a year ago, my first campaign on easy, playing thevikings: I had several times a unit of viking landsmen holding preternaturaly, stil standing and fighting while being reduced to 30 people approx. So help had been succesfully provided. On normal the unit wa routing and made another unit root and an easily won battle on easy just because of the morale boost became, with the same strategy a lost battle on normal... So this +4 our -4 for "starting morale bonus" has a big impact on the battle outcomes.

I agree with the fact that a morale boost can be found with religious monuments (but I think you need lots of those to have +4, this is a reliquary + a church, or cathedral + monastery for christians, it takes ages to build them), and I know that a good strategy gives more tan +4/-4 morale bonuses/maluses. THen the +8 when cannt retrat turns to +12 on expert: the basic morale of berserkers who usually stay tothe last man...

I'm not saying expert is easier than hard. I say that there are some ways of using part of the difficulty as an advantage

Sorry for answering this with such a starting topic, But Agent Miles did have very interesting views, I could'nt help!

[Agent Miles]

Thanks! I've actually never played on Hard. Maybe I'll do a comparison.

[General Dazza]

I'm torn everyone - I'm TORN!

I was so happy with my decision about Expert being better, but Noir and co do make sense.

Then - the other night I had a battle with Swedish troops in my hospitaller game (on high, expert, XL) which I'm 100 turns or so into. It was a tough affair and the Swedes got on top. Their high valour/morale troops were proving hard to break down.

My troops fled, but I managed to retreat/rally some towards the back of the map. The Swedes gave chase, but one unit at a time and with archers and other types in the front ( ).

So then their troops catch mine, which were not exactly in fighting order, but they again steamroll mine. They had archers killing my FMAAs in a 1 on 1 fight! Archers killing my (admittedly exhausted) mounted sergeants!

I was really annoyed cos I thought I had re-rallied my troops enough to fight off.

BUT - i think there's 2 ways you can look at this:
1. Archers should never kill FMAAs so this is just plain bad - and hard is the way to go
2. The AI is not as good tactically as the player, and the AI will do silly things sometimes (like chase with isolated archers units and send them into a 1 on 1 fight). And this evens it up.

I'm still not sure which way to go. But there is 1 thing I think worth noting - in this example it's only the AI that can afford to not fight according to accepted realistic tactics (infantry at front, flank with faster units etc etc). It kind of makes it evewn more important for the player to play good solid tactics. In this case even though the AI took me on with archers, I still was forced to treat them like elite warriors and do hold and flank maneouvres, and to structure my units effectively. Whereas in hard I could have just taken advantage of the AIs stupidity and mowed down his archers.

Food for thought?

Like I said - I'm still not sure which way I'll gof rothe next campaign. I might play hard to see the difference.

[Ironside]

Do you remeber anything more? As those archers can had quite a bit of valour and/or your FMAA can have been exhausted or worse.

Exhaution makes a serious difference. I often use a desert corp that lacks armour and they have a heavy tendency to loose the first wave while winning the rest (when exhaustion has striked).

Expert gives a 30% combatbonus= about 1 valour and +4 morale, while hard gives a 15% bonus, but 1 valour is a far cry from making an archer being able to match FMAA.

Being severely outstared is a much bigger problem.

[Agent Miles]

General Dazza, history is replete with battles where one side mistakenly thought that they were superior, only to meet William Wallace or someone else who just wanted to tear out their rib cage and throw it on the bar-by. Archers beat FMAA’s? It’s not the size of the man in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the man. Every battle should have an element of the unknown so that they don’t get stale. That’s why I play Expert.

[Martok]

I don't know that I'll ever play on Expert, to be honest. (Of course, I finally started regularly playing on Hard just this year, so I'm probably not one to talk. ) I think I just dislike it when anyone receives artificial bonuses, be it the player or AI -- I avoided playing on Easy for the same reason (since the player gets the +4 morale bonus on Easy).

[General Dazza]

I don't mind the AI getting some advantages in strategy games, as the human has plenty of natural advantages. I like a really good challenge, so for me gameplay has to be challenging.

The times I don't like the AI getting advantages is when the game makers just give the AI large troop numbers or whatever - things that don't make it more interesting, just more time consuming.

I think MTW is nicely balanced though, so doesn't suffer from that too much.

Ironside - I can't remember much more now - I didn't have a full FMAA unit, but neither did the archers. Mine were tired and had probably routed shortly before. But I do remember yelling "you've got to be kidding me!" at the screen.

Hey - one other thing I noticed in this battle and a few others shortly before/after, and I'm not sure if it's an Expert thing - I had at least 3-4 battles where a little bit of rain meant that my troops were close to exhaustion before they even got to the enemy. Granted, they were your full metal uniform army, but the rain wasn't that bad. They were largely field battles with no hills. By the time my army had marched up to be close, most were one 1-2 bars. Very frustrating, as within a short time the raised valour of the other army, and the exhaustion of mine had mine routing, even though I had the better quality army.

Not sure if I just haven't noticed it before, or if on expert you get any penalties?