Why play anything easier than vh/vh

[Mete Han]

MTW2 is the first total war game I ever played and I 've been playing for two or three months now and I easily completed the game with Turks in vh/vh and actually conquered the whole world. Later I had succesful games with the Spanish and the Holy Roman Empire in vh/vh. Don't you think the game is a little bit too easy?

[Bob the Insane]

It depends how you play I think...

Some of us like a slower paced game and due to the excessive agression of the AI in VH that is difficult. Personally I play on H/VH (campaign/battle).

I remember VH campaigns in RTW and it just got boring with deplomacy being a bit of a waste of time and endless enemy armies being thrown at you.

Ideally the game should be damn near impossible to beat on VH/VH but you are correct, this is simply not true...

[Rhedd]

"Don't you think the game's too easy" isn't the same question as the one asked in your title, and since it's been asked and answered (purely subjectively) a bazillion times, I'm going to ignore it in favor of the original question; "why play anything easier than VH/VH".

I play the campaign on M because turning it up doesn't really make the game any less beatable, it just removes all of the interesting options from the gameplay.

If I wanted to play a game without diplomacy, and all the other interesting things that become useless in a VH campaign, I'd just save time and play custom battles.

As for battlefield difficulty, I've always played on VH, but I've started experimenting with H, instead, because in some ways, it's actually harder. (!!!)

The extreme effects of morale and fatigue on VH (which is evenly applied to the player and the AI, at any level) make the battle easier, in some ways.

Set up on the top of a hill, and your opposition is dead before it arrives.

Hit the enemy just right and his whole line will route like dominos.

I haven't formed a final opinion, yet, but so far I'm not finding H terribly easier than VH, at least.

[Zenicetus]

I agree with Rhedd. I play at M/H because VH/VH kills diplomacy and makes it a purely military game. That's fine if you want to play it that way, but diplomacy adds another dimension. For me it's more fun and a little more challenging with diplomacy in the picture.

On a VH strategy setting, relations will continually degrade unless you bribe everyone constantly. So the AI does stupid things like attacking before it's ready, and failing to build up to the large armies that are more fun to fight.

At the M setting, your diplomatic relations with other factions slowly normalize towards neutral, and the AI factions behave more realistically. They're not always out to get you (at least not until you become a dominant faction), and they usually have better armies when you do fight them. It's also easier to play a side game of manipulating other factions into war or peace with diplomacy (and bribes), to serve your ultimate goals.

It isn't immediately obvious how these different settings affect the game, and this stuff about how relations "normalize" in different directions at different settings isn't in the manual, or I don't remember seeing it. It took me a while to realize why diplomacy felt so whacked and useless, when I started playing at VH from the start.

I also agree about VH tactical combat setting being something of a cheat for the player. It's easy to use terrain to force a "fatigue win." Regardless of whether the fatigue from marching and climbing is realistic or not (it probably is fairly realistic), the point is that the AI doesn't use this as effectively as the player. Playing at H difficulty for combat feels more realistic and balanced to me.

[Midnight]

VH\VH if I plan to blitz (doesn't make too much difference, but you take what you can get), M\VH if I actually want diplomacy to make sense.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It depends how you play I think...

Some of us like a slower paced game and due to the excessive agression of the AI in VH that is difficult. Personally I play on H/VH (campaign/battle).

I remember VH campaigns in RTW and it just got boring with deplomacy being a bit of a waste of time and endless enemy armies being thrown at you.

Ideally the game should be damn near impossible to beat on VH/VH but you are correct, this is simply not true...

Excessive aggression? My primary complaint is that the AI doesn't hurt me bad enough.

I wish the difficulty settings were like Doom and they went all the way up to "Nightmare" level.

I also recall that in RTW I would play as the Roman factions and blitz my way into the other families' expected territory, and fight on all 3 Roman fronts at once, just so that I literally had to face off against the world by myself.

It's easy to beat Carthage, Gaul, or Greece. It's hard to beat Carthage, Gaul, and Greece simultaneously. Then I would install RTR and play as Gaul on the hardest difficulty setting, and conquer while deeply in debt due to your massive starting armies, which are located too far away from one another to be of much use. Not that this stopped me.

No, nothing thrills the pizzaguy like being put into nearly unwinnable situations. I seriously wish the game had a setting for mass blitz of the AI against the player's faction. I'd hole up in Scotland and fend off wave after wave of bloodthirsty troops. If you're one of those whiny "realism" types, let's say for the sake of argument I had been excommunicated and I just assassinated a Cardinal who was next in line to be the Pope, and they called a Crusade on me and all the Catholic factions joined it.

Please, I need to feel the pain, the agony, the terror of actually being in DANGER of losing a game... so that when I finally crush those feeble goats, driving pikes through their corpses, stomping thier little skulls and pounding them into dust, I will have the satisfaction of knowing I destroyed a foe that was nearly my equal.

I am a blood-soaked berzerker wielding a giant two-handed axe, screaming obscenities at my foe, relishing in the destruction about to take place... THAT is my playing style.

It's not for the timid.

[Ramses II CP]

Quite frankly the VH campaign setting makes the game much easier. Diplomacy is a waste of time, so you just blitz and swarm the AI nations under. My first campaign was on VH/VH, and I tricked the French into a marriage alliance early on... which they broke about 4 turns later, destroying their reputation and leading to their eventual excommunication. Ten turns later, there was no France.

In my M/VH England game I made the decision not to blitz, and France still exists in 1304, as do almost all the nations.

If you want to play full bore slash and burn you probably won't notice a difference between easy and very hard campaign difficulties, because the primary change is in AI aggressiveness, and the player's slash and burn is always going to be far, far more aggressive than the AI.

I haven't experimented with the different battle difficulties, I just left it on VH, but if the AI were to sally less on lower difficulties I imagine they might actually be considerably more difficult.

[Hoplite7]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Excessive aggression? My primary complaint is that the AI doesn't hurt me bad enough.

I wish the difficulty settings were like Doom and they went all the way up to "Nightmare" level.

I also recall that in RTW I would play as the Roman factions and blitz my way into the other families' expected territory, and fight on all 3 Roman fronts at once, just so that I literally had to face off against the world by myself.

It's easy to beat Carthage, Gaul, or Greece. It's hard to beat Carthage, Gaul, and Greece simultaneously. Then I would install RTR and play as Gaul on the hardest difficulty setting, and conquer while deeply in debt due to your massive starting armies, which are located too far away from one another to be of much use. Not that this stopped me.

No, nothing thrills the pizzaguy like being put into nearly unwinnable situations. I seriously wish the game had a setting for mass blitz of the AI against the player's faction. I'd hole up in Scotland and fend off wave after wave of bloodthirsty troops. If you're one of those whiny "realism" types, let's say for the sake of argument I had been excommunicated and I just assassinated a Cardinal who was next in line to be the Pope, and they called a Crusade on me and all the Catholic factions joined it.

Please, I need to feel the pain, the agony, the terror of actually being in DANGER of losing a game... so that when I finally crush those feeble goats, driving pikes through their corpses, stomping thier little skulls and pounding them into dust, I will have the satisfaction of knowing I destroyed a foe that was nearly my equal.

I am a blood-soaked berzerker wielding a giant two-handed axe, screaming obscenities at my foe, relishing in the destruction about to take place... THAT is my playing style.

It's not for the timid.

You are very much like me, my favorite moments are fighting off waves of crusaders or holding the lines against all odds... the most satisfying battles are the ones when your men are "exhausted" and covered in blood, with half their unit dead or routed.

[Fookison]

I am in agreement with Rhedd and others. I don't need to play the campaign game in VH to have a challenge. I do however agree to do the battles on VH.

[phonicsmonkey]

I hear it a lot, but I never agree with it: diplomacy is not non-existent on VH campaign difficulty - it's just very hard!

you have to put a lot of effort into your relations with any faction you want to remain allied with, and realise that regardless what you do, on any campaign difficulty, sooner or later if you share a border with a faction and you are expanding and getting more powerful, they will opportunistically attack.

sure, this is not always sensible, but this happens on all campaign difficulties

I recently posted a screenshot of my venetian campaign on another thread and someone said they couldn't believe the campaign map had three major powers besides my own, and I was allied to all three in year 1480 or something. that's because I spent the whole game keeping them sweet and making sure my relations were always high

diplomacy works on VH, it's just very very hard!

[Askthepizzaguy]

I'll agree that the campaign AI needs work in order to live up to it's "VH" moniker.

IF-

*The AI decides it is not going to blitz me to death, it had better learn how to defend

*The AI decides to attack me, it had better come in force. Not one dinky stack of milita spearmen, archers, and knights led by a pathetic noob general. If you're going to hit me, hit me hard and hit me good. Bring several stacks at once, bring spies, artillery, proper heavy infantry, several units of bodyguard per stack, that sort of thing.

*If the AI decides to turtle, it should still save up a bunch of florins, make a big pile of them, and then spend it all on a whopping huge invasion army to take me down. Take a few of my border cities, and hold them. That would be enough of a nuisance to teach me not to blitz everyone. I would expect my bordering factions to do such things on VH/VH

*If the AI decides to blockade my ports, it had better plan on blockading more than one, and for more than a turn or two.

*If the AI decides to harass me by sitting troops in my territory, it had better be prepared for my backlash.

I personally believe that diplomacy isn't broken anymore. Diplomacy works, for the most part. I don't expect the AI to keep it's word, because neither do I. Alliances work best when you don't share a border. If you share a border, prepare to be backstabbed.

[phonicsmonkey]

I agree pizzaguy

the AI is least hard to play against when it throws half-stacks of badly led and badly equipped troops at you on a seemingly random whim

this may be because it re-assesses the situation every turn and makes no long-term plans

I would like to see it (eg) decide to invade my eastern territories, send spies to check how well they are defended, make an appraisal as to what it needs in order to take them, train an army to do the job, then send that army led by its best available general to take those territories or die trying

that would constitute a challenge

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I agree pizzaguy

the AI is least hard to play against when it throws half-stacks of badly led and badly equipped troops at you on a seemingly random whim

this may be because it re-assesses the situation every turn and makes no long-term plans

I would like to see it (eg) decide to invade my eastern territories, send spies to check how well they are defended, make an appraisal as to what it needs in order to take them, train an army to do the job, then send that army led by its best available general to take those territories or die trying

that would constitute a challenge

The only trouble is that I would get a clear heads-up about the invasion the instant I catch a spy in my territory. I would be well-prepared for the invasion if I see a spy or catch one, and the enemy attacks 12 turns later. The AI should once in a while attack blindly (If your relations with them are bad). It wasn't always the case that they knew what to expect anyhow. But they should come prepared for anything, no matter how big my empire.

There should be a feature to assess the enemy strength when maps are exchanged, making you a bit more reluctant to share your maps with the enemy. Once you show them your maps, that faction should be able to assess your strength and plan accordingly.

Alternatively, princesses, merchants, assassins, priests and diplomats should be able to at least relay how many units there are in enemy territory, if not tell the AI everything about them. I use diplomats as spies and merchants as well.

Merchants cost nothing per turn, and function like a poor-man's spy. Offering trade rights and map exchange should come with the penalty of having your borders open to such riff-raff (as it does now) and having your military strength revealed to the enemy (as it should).

[Budwise]

Why play anything easier than vh/vh?

Because I don't want to be the queer in the game of smear the queer. I don't mean that in a bad way at all but its a figure of speech and it matches this debate.

[Crash]

The H and VH campaign is actually easier than an M campaign. The diplomacy and rebels in H/VH are much more difficult for the AI than the human player. To me the most challenging games would VH/E because battles would be tougher to win for the human player but the campaign game would be easier for the AI player.

[Zenicetus]

the AI is least hard to play against when it throws half-stacks of badly led and badly equipped troops at you on a seemingly random whim

this may be because it re-assesses the situation every turn and makes no long-term plans

I'm not sure that's a major obstacle, because I've seen other turn-based strategy games where the AI (subjectively) seems smarter. For example, the GalCiv2 space strategy game has the same turn-based limitation, but it also has a built-in brake against early blitzing by the player. It takes time to colonize your corner of the galaxy and tech up to the point where you can even think about military action. By the time you get there, you're facing a few AI factions that are as strong and well-organized as you are.

I've always felt it was a weakness of the TW game design that the player can blitz so easily, in the first game turns. Once you get the steamroller going, it's hard to stop it. I suppose it's an inevitable result of sticking reasonably close to history. The game wouldn't feel right at this period of time, if we were starting from tiny isolated villages and couldn't engage in combat right away for expansion.

Anyway, I hate facing half-stacks too, and the only way I've found to get a more challenging game is to stop myself from blitzing, give the AI time to build, and set strategic difficulty to M so the AI doesn't get crazy about expanding ahead of their resources.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Because I don't want to be the queer in the game of smear the queer. .

Too late

[Mete Han]

Come on guys, if the battle difficulty is less than vh then the ai cannot respond to your formation changes and manuveurs effectively. You can easily surround them. They just sit and wait like ducks. as for the campaign difficulty, I think it might be worth a try to play in M or H difficulty. Try to play in vh against the mongols and timurids stacks in battles and see how the morale and fatigue works against you. Like the askthepizzaguy, I think the more pain in a game the more pleasure to complete it.

[Bob the Insane]

Excessive aggression? My primary complaint is that the AI doesn't hurt me bad enough.

You do understand what I mean though? I mean excessive aggression with very limited ability to actually hurt you unless you simply stand around waiting until it finally sticks some decent sized armies out there (which you then proceed to take to pieces anyway)...

Think of a highly aggressive Yorkshire Terrier... It can't really do you any harm (unless you stand still for a very long time) but is not that much fun to play with because it is so single mindedly fixated on attacking you (no matter how ineffective it is being)... That is how I view the VH setting for the campaign...

[Ragnor_Lodbrok]

I play E/E. Why? Because i don't like getting my arse handed to me in every autocalculation I could have easily won instead of every second autocalculation.
And I don't like enemy troops constantly having their morale restored when they're routing.

[mor dan]

Pizzaguy, you don't want to play a computer. You want to play a person. A computer can't do what you've asked it to do unless they start building neural nets into video games. All it can do is run a set of prescribed algorithms, and those will always be dictated by your actions. VH/VH tells the computer to be warlike. Diplomacy is for the weak. Attack, Attack, Attack. Well, for some people who play that style of game, it's a challenge. I like to solidify my position first. Root myself into the ground so deep that even if you defeat me you'll be dealing with my ghost for the rest of eternity. On M/H, I get to play that way. I have time to develop my trade lines, and everyone wants to trade with me. I have time to develop my navy. I have time to let all of the historical triggers take place in a system where I level about the same as the computer.

If I develop a program that alternates paths of destruction, in that at the beginning it chooses its path to victory of taking out the world, you will eventually learn it and once again there will be no challenge. My advice to you is to mod your enemies to be stronger than you. Limit yourself to only certain unit types. Do what it is the computer can't do. He can't anticipate you. But you can anticipate him. Role play your kingdom as that ruler would have acted. Take on their strengths and weaknesses. Redefine your goals for "victory". Use your imagination to make this highly moddable game into something brand new everytime you turn it on.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Pizzaguy, you don't want to play a computer. You want to play a person. A computer can't do what you've asked it to do unless they start building neural nets into video games. All it can do is run a set of prescribed algorithms, and those will always be dictated by your actions. VH/VH tells the computer to be warlike. Diplomacy is for the weak. Attack, Attack, Attack. Well, for some people who play that style of game, it's a challenge. I like to solidify my position first. Root myself into the ground so deep that even if you defeat me you'll be dealing with my ghost for the rest of eternity. On M/H, I get to play that way. I have time to develop my trade lines, and everyone wants to trade with me. I have time to develop my navy. I have time to let all of the historical triggers take place in a system where I level about the same as the computer.

If I develop a program that alternates paths of destruction, in that at the beginning it chooses its path to victory of taking out the world, you will eventually learn it and once again there will be no challenge. My advice to you is to mod your enemies to be stronger than you. Limit yourself to only certain unit types. Do what it is the computer can't do. He can't anticipate you. But you can anticipate him. Role play your kingdom as that ruler would have acted. Take on their strengths and weaknesses. Redefine your goals for "victory". Use your imagination to make this highly moddable game into something brand new everytime you turn it on.

Meh. I've played strategy games that had wide variances in how the AI plays a game. This one is too predictable.

Civ II through IV had a good range of AI behaviors.

Sure, I'd love to play against humans, but the current system of doing online hotseat games takes way too long.

I love the feedback, though.