difficulty setting

[traveller2]

eb is recomended at campaign very hard and strategic medium right well what does the campaign difficulty actually do? strategic I know the ai gets bonusses and such but campaign I never knew (not even in rtw vanilla).

Really great work guys love this version now I just need to find time to play

[The Celtic Viking]

Strategically, the harder the difficulty, the more aggressive will the AI be towards you. You will get harder to sign diplomatic deals, and they will hate you more and longer (as if they could actually stop) and it is said that they also get bonus money (though this I personally don't know about) the harder the campaign difficulty. The eleutheroi may even send units to take your villages in VH, as opposed to N.

EB recommends VH because it makes eleutheroi villages act more like independant cities, as they are supposed to, but it's really a matter of personal taste.

[johnhughthom]

Extra 10K per turn on VH for the AI.

[Jurdagat]

I personally prefer H difficulty for the campaign.
Mainly since compared to N difficulty the eleutheroi actually is aggressive at times, and they can end up sieging cities from time to time.
Another thing is that diplomacy is a bit easier to handle then on VH difficulty.

I don't always like the feeling of being the big bad faction that everyone is after, even when I am just a small empire. :)

I find it very frustrating to get overwhelmed early on by playing smaller factions, since I take my time and don't expand to fast.

I haven't played on VH campaign much, as I found H to be what suits for me.
Again this is just my personal opinion, and I hope it was helpful. :)

[johnhughthom]

I've noticed a few post from the team where they have said they are thinking of changing the recommended difficulty to H/M so the diplomacy is not quite as stupid. The money script seems to be balanced well for hard campaign difficulty.

[NeoSpartan]

Nahhh fellas....

EB recommends VH campain as The Vicious Monkey explains. As the $$ bonus allow the AI to NOT go broke since it cannot handle the complexity of EB's economy.

Now on BATTLE diffuculty.... here are some general guidelines that will help if figuring out what difficutly to play.

-Medium (recommended by EB): This allows you ROLEPLAY way better than anything. You can set rules as of the size of your armies, elite units in ur armies, not assult cities, etc.... This is generaly used in the AARs and many Roleplaying Romani players use it. Also M allows battles between units to reflect thier stats better as the AI doesn't get stat bonues. Its good also for bigginers to EB,... or for people who are used to Legions beating everyone

-Medium with FATIGE OFF Its my personal recommendation if you play M since the AI doens't know how to manage Fatige. It tires its troops by having them run around too much, so u end up facing an "exausted enemy" which routs instantly.

However... to me Medium is WAY too easy, to the point were the game is not longer fun.

-Hard or Hard with Fatige OFF (My personal favorite, especially fatige off )
--It gives the AI units some bonuses to make up for its lack of tactical knowledge. So the AI is more of a challenge in battles. This difficulty also allows you to Roleplay (to a sligly lesser extent though), or set a few house rules like no all elite armies, or not RUSHING the AI.

-Very Hard If you want a challege here it is.. The AI gets HUGE bonuses (+7) and Gaesatae are damn near invisible in VH (some people will argue that they are actually invinsible in VH). As a result you have no rules. Just try to survive.
--And if you play as the Aedui/Arverni, any nomad faction, or any faction surrounding the "Silver Death" or AS (exept for the Ptolemoi). VH will be near impossible due to not only the Ai bonuses but ur s**y economy as well
--VH general best used with Rich factions. And if you want to go creazy at it, go VH with Fatige off. Yes its doable, I did with KH in .81v.

[tapanojum]

Didn't know it was recommended VH/M. I'm playing KH in H/H, and it's not noticably harder than M/M. Year 258, kicked Maks out of Greece and took some Barbarian land to the north as well with 60,000gold.

[Tarkus]

I'm playing H/M and, so far in the early stages of a Romani campaign, don't see the Eleutheroi doing much of anything...I'd like to see them be a bit more aggressive...I guess VH/M is the way to go...

[Starforge]

NeoSpartan got it right. Playing on VH / M is great but really only if you're roleplaying it (no assaults.) Blitzing on VH / M (or heck even VH / H) is going to make the game easy since the AI doesn't handle it well. Using BI helps by making you garrison normally "safe" areas on your coasts - tying up resources that could be used for expansion (again - harder if you're roleplaying.)

I haven't tried EB on VH / VH since I started house-rules and more roleplaying and not sure I would want to save maybe with Rome.

Then again - I'm not really a masochist

[Pharnakes]

Gaesatae are damn near invisible

Invisible? I wish! the damn things are anything but invisble!


Sorry but that was just too perfect an opportunity


*hurredly checks before posting to make sure own spelling and grammar is flawless*

[NeoSpartan]

Invisible? I wish! the damn things are anything but invisble!


Sorry but that was just too perfect an opportunity


*hurredly checks before posting to make sure own spelling and grammar is flawless*

LOL!!! nice pharnakes.....

[blacksnail]

"Sir, I have some bad news."
"Yes, centurion?"
"Our scouts report that we are surrounded by hundreds of invisible men who are, er, 'coked to the gills.'"
"Wonderful. Anything else?"
"For some reason they are all nude."

[jhhowell]

If you read the 0.8 faction progression thread, you'll see several people (including myself) becoming intensely frustrated by the VH campaign AI's suicidal devotion to attacking the player's faction. I ended up quitting my Rome campaign because I was 30 years away from the Marian reforms and the tedium of euthanizing the Sweboz was just too much for me. And that was after using the force diplomacy mod to get peace with the Ptolemies and KH, too.

If you want a campaign of literally endless warfare, go for VH; that might even work as AS or a handful of other factions. Personally I consider it to be a game-destroying setting and will never use it again. I'll be interested to see if H/M works, or if it takes M/M to get the AI to stop the idiotic wars.

[mighty_rome]

Well, it isn't called Rome: Total War for nothing... just do some auto-resolves if you feel you're getting too many battles. I actually like playing out all of the battles though.

[NeoSpartan]

If you read the 0.8 faction progression thread, you'll see several people (including myself) becoming intensely frustrated by the VH campaign AI's suicidal devotion to attacking the player's faction. I ended up quitting my Rome campaign because I was 30 years away from the Marian reforms and the tedium of euthanizing the Sweboz was just too much for me. And that was after using the force diplomacy mod to get peace with the Ptolemies and KH, too.

If you want a campaign of literally endless warfare, go for VH; that might even work as AS or a handful of other factions. Personally I consider it to be a game-destroying setting and will never use it again. I'll be interested to see if H/M works, or if it takes M/M to get the AI to stop the idiotic wars.

Yeah I know.... and like I told a lot of people who were in that situation: "ATTACK"

What you describe has a tendency to occur to those who Roleplay too defensively. Now I know when u roleplay u try to limit ur expansion, especially if u are a Romani player roleplaying the exact expansion of the Roman Empire. Well ur gonna run into 3 problems here:
1-) AI doesn't know history.
2-) AI doesn't role play
3-) AI wants to KILL U!!!

So what you should do is build 2 stacks of troops and send then in a "Pacification" mission. That is you attack the aggresor's land, loot thier towns and exterminate the population. In Medium battle difficutly this WILL NOT be a problem. At the end of the day this will buy you anywere from 10-15 turns of relative "peace", and since the AI will most likely be sending crappy units at u after the pacification, you can afford to do "Auto Resolve" (and get the "defender autoresolve win" thingy mod).

THAT is you stop the AI from Swarming you.

However a lot of players don't do this, so they complain about VH campain difficutly.

I've done this in many of my campains wheather I am roleplaying or not, in Vh/Vh, Vh/M, VH/H. H/VH, H/H. I don't sit and "recieve" AI stacks, I make the AI recieve MY stacks

[Parkev]

I removed the Population Replenishment part of the 0.81 script, such that continually killing hordes and hordes of Gauls, (the Germans haven't bothered me too much yet) as the Casse, will eventually remove all of their manpower and they won't attack as much (worked in a RTR campaign as Romani, once all of Cisalpine Gaul had a total population of about 2000, no more attacking for 5 years or so). I'm yet to see the fruits but I hope peace will come eventually.

"Pacifying" campaigns also work well, think of them as supporting a peoples facing oppression from the rulers of the area.

[Pharnakes]

(and get the "defender autoresolve win" thingy mod).

Whats that?

[Little Legioner]

Fellas, is there any possibility to change campaign and battle difficulty in the middle your campaign.

Just wondering, if it is possible then may be i'd do that

[Pharnakes]

Nope, sadly can't be done.

[Lysander13]

I've always played on VH/M but me thinks i'm gonna be giving H/M a try in my next campaign. ( I'm probably the only person around here who hasn't started a 1.0 campaign yet. ) The AI is brutal, we all know that. It just seems so annoying though on VH setting. I realize diplomacy is not the strong suit of the Total War Series but it just seems very irritating on VH..as in there is none. I like to roleplay my campaigns and expand very slowly but that's very difficult to do on VH. Although it's been suggested that perhaps doing some deep raids and withdrawing back to your own borders is a good way to slow the AI down. I actually do this and it is effective at slowing down the AI somewhat but that doesn't exactly qualify as good diplomacy. It's the non-existant diplomacy that annoys me on VH. Not that it's much better on any other setting mind you, it's just seems to me, to be completely non-existent while playing on VH.

In a perfect world we'd have the Total War engine for battles and such, combined with the diplomacy of Europa Universalis. Ahhhh, now that would be a game.

[Thaatu]

Well, it isn't called Rome: Total War for nothing... just do some auto-resolves if you feel you're getting too many battles. I actually like playing out all of the battles though.

Actually it's Europa Barbarorum.


I can be such a smartass sometimes.

[NeoSpartan]

Actually it's Europa Barbarorum.


I can be such a smartass sometimes.

No its, Europa Barbarorum, A MODIFICATION of Rome Total War, something something in Latin.

[Thaatu]

No its, Europa Barbarorum, A MODIFICATION of Rome Total War, something something in Latin.

That's a long name. How should I pronounce the whip smilie?


I'm on fire.

[mlc82]

I'm also going to restart on H/M playing as Romani... I keep getting attacked by endless 2-3 unit "armies" from the AI factions (and I'm using BI so they like to land them in Italy), and if they happen to have a general in their mix, using autoresolve usually just massacres my much larger force (with a non 6-8 command star general). I wouldn't mind if these were exciting life or death struggles, however having to constantly run down and kill off enemy stacks that aren't a real threat is both irritating and boring.

My only worry with the Hard campaign setting is that the AI won't receive enough extra money to accomplish anything, and also that it won't build as large of armies (I've seen several massive armies so far, although most just stand around and starve as opposed to attacking anything) as VH AI. I'm not really sure on the army part, if someone could clarify that would be great!

Please note, I'm NOT complaing about EB, this is just the hardcoded to be stupid TW AI at its finest... ;)

[mlc82]

Also, how do you turn off fatigue? Select "Arcade Battles"?

[johnhughthom]

Turn fatigue to false in your EB preferences file.

[NeoSpartan]

...

Please note, I'm NOT complaing about EB, this is just the hardcoded to be stupid TW AI at its finest... ;)

I know... but its the the AI doing its "thing"

Since ur doing some HEAVY roleplaying (and I presume you don't want to pasify the AI & get some LOOT) .... at least have it H/H & no fatige so the AI its not so much of a cake walk u know....

[mlc82]

I know... but its the the AI doing its "thing"

Since ur doing some HEAVY roleplaying (and I presume you don't want to pasify the AI & get some LOOT) .... at least have it H/H & no fatige so the AI its not so much of a cake walk u know....

That's what I'm planning to do, H/H w/ no fatigue sounds like much more fun overall.

I did try taking both Kart-Hadast and Atiqua to stop the Carthaginian 2 unit armies from constantly besieging my cities, but when I did, the KH decided to start doing it instead (with armies made up of 2-3 units of militia hoplites). So far, the only way I can see pacifying the AI is to just blitz my way through the whole map, which ruins the fun... I like to role play it :D

[Ritterlichvon86]

How can they even reach your cities. You have people living in the rural areas too, you must protect them.

You could set up guards at the borders of your provinces.

If you really need to pacify some barbarians, raid their cities, destroy the infrastructure and move on. Your people shall be save from those savages after all.

[mlc82]

How can they even reach your cities. You have people living in the rural areas too, you must protect them.

You could set up guards at the borders of your provinces.

If you really need to pacify some barbarians, raid their cities, destroy the infrastructure and move on. Your people shall be save from those savages after all.

I'm running EB with Barbarian Invasion, and the AI likes to land armies via the sea right in the middle of Italy. Like I said, this would be fun if it were massive, threatening armies that had a chance of destroying my faction, but it isn't, it's annoying, 2-4 unit stacks of mainly militia which are only trying to annoy me to death.