Does Anyone Play Anything Else But Medium?

[DaCrAzYmOfO]

I have been reading through many posts, and apparently I have seen that most players play with medium battles and hard campaign difficulty. During all the time I been playing rome total war I found out that medium battles are just pushovers, due to the fact of morale (anvil and hammer works ALWAYS), so I play very hard battles and medium campaign difficulty, mostly because of the sexy AI attacking me from all sides and not allowing me to use anything besides crappy tier 1 spearmen.... Not that I'm against it...usually pwn em anyways :P. Either way, reading a post earlier I saw on how Europa Barbarorum was meant to be played on medium battles.... Has anyone actually played a lenghty campaign on medium battles and another one on hard battles to try to explain the difference? I just feel that very hard is nice, but some units dont make the cut, such as one post which depicted the vascii shock infantry getting swallowed whole by the romans... Which happened to me btw ... gosh I hate that roman armor...they just dont die >.>

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The EB stats are balanced for Medium. You can play on Hard or Very Hard, and I've seen many people who say they do. But the rule is, if you have a battle and they AI seems to magically cheat and a single unit of AI Gaesatatae kills a full stack of your units, you can't complain. Some units who are strong in Medium are nearly undefeatable in H or VH.

But if you like the challege, more power to you!

[Starforge]

I play all of the versions of RTW on H / H. VH battles can make for some ridiculous results. VH campaign actually makes the game easier from my experience since that means typically more fights against easy merc armies (AI has more money) giving your units more free experience. These essentially meaningless fights in VH that can lead (at least for me) to fairly quick burnout.

I suspect also that which version of difficulty will depend on which faction you pick. Rome, Carthage, some of the others can probably win on VH without too much trouble. The smaller nations near AS might have some trouble with that though :).

[DaCrAzYmOfO]

lol yeah...I used to play vh/vh...till I realised i got pissed at fighting too many battles everyturn against all my neighbors lol...

But yeah...I see...ima give medium a shot...I just hope i dont get bored lol ;P

[Tellos Athenaios]

As for tactics, Medium or VH doesn't make much of a difference. You're rid of the crazy bonuses the AI get with Medium that's all. (Which means your Vasci shock infanty will give those Romans a nasty surprise next time.)

[Thaatu]

Has anyone played with Aedui or Arverni with hard or very hard battle difficulty? I play with Aedui on H/M, and I had a little problem when I decided to prolong the civil wars, not eliminating Arverni immediately. By 260 BCE Gergovia had 10 units of Gaesatae in its garrison, while I was still in the red. By 240 Gergovia had the king, 17 Gaesatae and two slingers. Thankfully, in 238 BCE the last Arverni family member died and they ceased to exist as a faction. I really can't think of a way to beat an army of 17 Gaesatae, especially with H or VH.

[Digby Tatham Warter]

I really can't think of a way to beat an army of 17 Gaesatae, especially with H or VH.

If the money is available then perphaps the only way would be to wear them down with more than 1 stack and lots of slingers, perphaps in siege assaults, where you should have a better chance of pounding them.

Going back to the first post, I have played as AS into late BC, on both medium and hard battle settings. I was dissapointed when I found my veteran armies in late campaign, would crush enemies to easily, yet I worked too hard to give them up(I do like my vets)

Next I tried a new campaign on hard battle setting, which makes for a more challenging start as certain units, like Ptholemies(spelling?) more crack troops can take alot of punishment, and will plough through your cheaper units like a juggernaut. But taken as a whole in a long term game, hard battle setting is the way to go.

[larsbecks]

I like to play on H/H. Medium battle difficulty can get boring because its easy to beat the AI. With H it makes battles a little more unpredictable. I changed the general units to be smaller since they were the ones who seemed overpowered on H.

[Xehh II]

All I play is medium battles, I remember in hard, one unit of 120 Gaesatae killed 1000 of my mixed Roman/Greek troops.

[Digby Tatham Warter]

All I play is medium battles, I remember in hard, one unit of 120 Gaesatae killed 1000 of my mixed Roman/Greek troops.

In all the zillions of battles I have fought(on hard), I cannot remember any single unit including Gaesatae being so dominant in a scrap.

[Janius]

I always play with VH/H,
mainly because I like to battle with full stacks and the ai usually uses half-stacks. By playing on hard their lack of manpower is compensated.
Yet sometimes this does lead to absurd situations, where 6 units of gestatae butcher an entire roman legion

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Funny that everybody considers Gaesatae too be so powerful. I think they are pretty vulnerable to missile troops. And once played on H battle difficulty, I beat Gaesatae with 2 units Rorarii and a General. Most of the Rorarii died, but in the end they defeated the Gaesatae.

[NeoSpartan]

I usually play VH/VH... recently I played VH/M and treid to "role play". I couldn't do it.... Just too easy, and many times I would get frustrated due to the lack of a challenge. Even with rulz and s*** like that.


HOWEVER, I found out that if u put FATIGE: FALSE, then even in M battles are more enjoyable because the AI won't tire its troops.

Right now I kinda took that to the extreme and I am playing a KH H/VH campain this way. I am doing good so far. But I don't know how well it will go once I have to face the Ptolemaoi (sp) with their ALL ELITE armies.

[LusitanianWolf]

I'm actualy playing an Baktrian campain in h/vh (battles/campain) and I'm powning the AS with pahlavian help .... I just dont like to be so poor that I can only have two half stacks of mainly persian archers and other half stack of cripled parthian horse archers units to defend my sapatries keeping an 2k income.. I'm still dreamings with the time when I'll be able to create one stack with elephants, hipotoxotai, phalanxes, indian longbowmans and maybe catraphacts....
But m/vh is ok to me too.

[pezhetairoi]

Medium for me. I'm not suicidal. Yups.

[DaCrAzYmOfO]

Well...I played an aeudiu campaign 2 days ago, and my evil expansionist ass removed both arverni and romans in a fell swipe in around 8 hours of gameplay (I'm in summer, give me a break, im bored lol) with botroas, north gallic swords and some stacks of gallic spearmen with one small stack of 40 archers for fire and around 3 units of slingers. So medium battles and hard difficulty are a big no no lol.

I been going through an Epirote campaign and so far I have managed to push the Romaios to their own hades and the makedonians down into athens/chalkis/korinthos...

Btw, The epirote campaign has taken me around 5 hours and I have played on h/h ...

Still too easy lol I think ima return to my stressful yet enjoyable vh/m games lol.

Cheers :)