Level of difficulty and why?

[Disciple of Tacitus]

What level of difficulty are you using in your campaigns and why? I'm not looking for "the AI sucks" or "I'm great" answers but more of a "this level challenges me without bludgening me and this is why..." kind of thing.
I am becoming a big fan of Konny's House Rules/Campaign Rules, but that is an individual preference. Can we get a roll call on this one...


btw, I use m/m b/c I thought that was what the game was designed for but the more I peruse the forum, the more I see people using other levels of difficulty. Hence this post.

[Intranetusa]

M/VH

Medium battle so the AI doesn't get insane bonuses such as +7 attack & +7 morale.

Very Hard so the AI can actually send in some decent units after me


(Also my settings so I can actually autobattle sometimes without getting pwned by levy millta when I have full stacks of elites)

[Danest]

Against, say, the Seleukids, I find very hard campaign to be an exercise in some sort of madness. That's no shot against EB despite how it might sound. But having to fight off three or four full sieges/stacks each turn from one faction alone can become truly exhausting. Especially if I'm playing Hayasdan...

When I'm playing the Romans, however, I kindof enjoy the "barbarians at the gates thing" that comes with the very hard campaign level.

In any case, I'd never touch anything above medium battle. No sense in giving the AI units unrealistic bonuses. I prefer that my elites can beat a skirmisher, and that might go away on very hard. :p

[cmacq]

This thread tracks a game that was on Hard/Campaign and Medium/Battle.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=97333

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Have always played on M/M. I don't like me or the AI rushing (though I did blitz to crush Epeiros and KH early as Makedonia).
.

[Midnj]

VH/H.

I prefer H for battles because I find you can't win by simply rear-charging with cav right after the lines meet. You actually need to time your charges after specific units are worn out enough to succeed. Right now, a good heavy cav unit (most generals) can easily rout regular infantry right away and produce the ridiculous "heroic victory/clear victory" parades you see in the AARs.

[jabarto]

I recently switched from H/M to M/M. I did it because of what I'd heard of diplomacy being better on that level, but I stayed there because the AI expansion in my last few campaigns has been much improved.

Against, say, the Seleukids, I find very hard campaign to be an exercise in some sort of madness. That's no shot against EB despite how it might sound. But having to fight off three or four full sieges/stacks each turn from one faction alone can become truly exhausting. Especially if I'm playing Hayasdan...

This, too. I prefer my games to be more leisurely paced, and I can always institute more houserules if I get bored with them, but it's harder to find a workaround for endless battles and dogpiling AI.

[Apgad]

I use M/M, mostly because time pressures (damn job and family) mean I only have 4-5 hours of playing time per week. Harder settings mean that campaigns take months and months, which drag on a bit.

When I get sacked and divorced I might try VH/VH, but not just yet...

[konny]

M/M

M battle difficulty should be no question.

M campaign difficulty is my favorite because the AI seems to be a bit more reasonable in its diplomatic behaviour (you are still backstabbed all the time, but the AI also makes peace more often). Another thing is that I do not want the AI to hire mercs without controll. It should stick to what is allowed by MICs.

I am becoming a big fan of Konny's House Rules/Campaign Rules, but that is an individual preference.

Thank you.

[blank]

H/M

Always played at H campaign difficulty, i'm not sure why

I prefer H for battles because I find you can't win by simply rear-charging with cav right after the lines meet. You actually need to time your charges after specific units are worn out enough to succeed. Right now, a good heavy cav unit (most generals) can easily rout regular infantry right away and produce the ridiculous "heroic victory/clear victory" parades you see in the AARs.

But that is realistic - if an already engaged unit got charged from the rear by cavalry they tended to rout. Fast.

[mlc82]

I play Hard Campaign Medium Battle as well... Medium battles for the reasons listed above (not to unbalance stats, and I try to keep my armies somewhat accurate for the factions, instead of just creating huge armies of elite units).

Hard campaign because the AI still builds scary looking armies and will actually launch naval invasions (I use BI.exe), and at least try to put up a fight which it doesnt' seem to do on medium, but isn't insanely suicidially aggressive like it is on VH. Being attacked on all sides every turn and having to keep crushing AI army after AI army (I love EB but the RTW hardcoded battle AI is just horrendous) is more of a chore than fun to me.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Hard campaigns, Medium battles.

[Hooahguy]

ditto- i tried VH for campaign, but it was insane..... H is best, at least for me.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

H/M for me too.
VH was too crazy and the AI expanded way too fast.
Sometimes I'll play M too. For some factions like Hayasdan, it is nice to not have to worry about the Seleukids hiring tons of mercenaries.

[TWFanatic]

Very hard campaign, hard battles. I feel hard battles delivers a good balance, because it makes up for the AI's habit of running around and getting tired while under missile fire. It's still lacking the "intelligence," but at least I can't win a battle with 1 in 10 odds anymore.

[anubis88]

I used to play on VH/VH becouse it was the only way to have a real challenge in a battle, but a changed to VH campaign and H battles. I'ts much easier for roleplaying if you know that your Thorakitai Agryaspidai won't be routed by an group of thureoporoi

[Perturabo]

Hard Campaign, Medium Battles

I don't care for the AI getting idiotic morale bonuses in battle, hence Medium Battles, units act as realistically as possible.

On Hard Campaign the AI gets to recruit some of the very nice Merc units while not getting the 'over the top' bonuses and suicidal tendancies of VH.

[bigmilt16]

I do M/M, with BI.

On my Romani campaign, I can institute house rules easier without the worry of the AI blitzing me with countless stacks. The diplomacy is not ridiculously one-sided towards the AI (I couldn't get the Iberians to make peace, even after beating them down to one settlement, and instituting an embargo).


For those of you that want a bit more challenge in Battles on M/M:

TURN OFF FATIGUE. It is the perfect balance because the AI receives no combat bonuses, but every battle is fought with MUCH more intensity. You will no longer win every battle, and no more ridiculously lopsided victories for the human either. The general in the army makes all the difference! If the AI has a great general, then you will certainly have to fight to the last man. That will encourage players to assassinate the enemy general!



Here's my philosophy on M/M and BI:


I still get a good challenge though. Rebels still attack my forts and trade routes. Moreover, playing with BI seems to help make up a bit for the lack of AI challenge on vanilla EB. With BI, the AI appears to spend its money on better quality troops to send against you.

Furthermore, the AI will give me a real run for my money in terms of a naval war. Carthage and the Greek Cities were invading my shores with troops! This forced me to build a navy; and thus, better manage my budget because of it. I could not longer blitz with the Romans because I needed to establish a strong economy at home with good roads, and farms (to support my growing navy) as I expanded, and that took REAL TIME. But is more satisfying to know that the denari will keep flowing as I go to war with huge ships, and build a full stack consular army.

For those who are scared or turned off by BI's naval invasions, or think that the AI will mindlessly keep invading the same province, must simply learn naval strategy. I am at nearly 230 BC, and have not experienced a single Carthaginian naval invasion on Corsica! Why???? Because I built a strong homeland economy, so I can build a strong navy, so that I can sink any Carthaginian boat that crosses Sicily. Normally, you can spot the AI attempting to make an invasion with about a turn or two to make your move and sink their boats. Also, I don't just turn the other cheek either; instead, I actively make sure that I have boats constantly blocking their shores to cut off Carthaginian Grain, gold, animals, and oil. This will also hurt their navy building capacity.

[Hooahguy]

you are a real strategist, bigmilt16.

[conn madigan]

Hi guys, i play as Sweboz at VH/VH difficulty.

The battles are... well, very hard. The Gaesatae are very powerful indeed. I fighting against the Aedui, won 110, lost 35 battles. Its fun to not win every battles like in the vanilla campaign.

But i dont recommend the VH battle setting, not because the difficulty, because its unrealistic. Next time when i will choose VH/H, i think the hard battle difficulty is much more realistic, and fairly hard.

Sorry for my bad grammar...

[Hax]

Grammar is fine. Doesn't matter if there are some mistakes here and there, lot's of people aren't native English speakers. As long as y00 d0n't sp34k 1337. :P

I play on VH/M

Very Hard for the campaign. I like the AI expanding, gives me a more realistic feel.

M for battles, because..well...never thought about it. It just is recommended :P

[Midnj]

The problem I see with turning fatigue off is that it affects your armies too. So you have zero net change and all that is really accomplished is you make battles more bloody without making them more tactically challenging.

On top of that, if you play as the Romani - who somewhat rely on attacking in depth largely with exploiting fatigue in mind, you pretty much remove that entire aspect from tactical considerations.

But I guess on the other hand it does reduce the huge AI crutch that is defending siege battles when they run around like idiots. But then 90% of the time this seems to be caused by humans using ranged attacks against enemies behind walls. I usually "fix" this deficiency by not allowing my ranged units to attack anything behind a wall (even a pallisade) as its not terribly realistic for skirmishers/slingers/archers who are ground level to shoot at something nobody in your army can technically see.

[bovi]

With fatigue: AI troops mill around and get exhausted for no good reason, human troops preserve their strength.

Without fatigue: AI troops mill around and stay fresh, human troops stay fresh.

The net change is evening out the odds. And a loss in realism, of course.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I usually exhaust my cavalry and pay the price in nearly every battle. If I turned off fatigue, I would gain a whole lot from it and my stupid overuse of cavalry would go unpunished. That is the main reason I leave it on, dispite AI milling around.

[Redmeth]

Just started a new campaign on H/H and the battles are good sometimes frustrating because even Jugunthiz take a bit of effort to rout and last stands when sieging are a pain (need more archers I guess). I've tried out the ALEX exe and I like the expansion there seems to be less of the standing around with 2 stacks syndrome. I've started to use guard mode and other abilities and that's good, I can no longer just force the center when I like.

[mlc82]

How's the battle AI under Alex.exe? I've heard in the Alex thread that it's improved but haven't really heard how.

[Starforge]

My difficulty level typically depends upon the difficulty of the faction. I tend to RP / Houserule myself a bit and don't use exploitive strategies (and on the easier factions - no assaults.)

For Romans or other relatively easy factions VH/H
For most of the moderate "Barbarian" style factions VH/M
When I'm feeling Masochistic playing Haysadan or some such H/M

Much depends on your personal playstyle though. I find that if you blitz rebels or factional neighbors at the start - bump the difficulty a notch since you've used an exploitive tactic to make the game easier for yourself (as an example.)

Edit: I run using BI.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

I typically run M/M, although there is little challenge on the battlefield I dislike my expensive units getting schooled by a bunch of skirmishers. The campaign difficulty was reasonable, I have no issue with the AI expansion speed, great empires didn't spring up over a couple of years (or if they did they didn't last).
However now that I'm winning easily this time round I'm upping the campaign difficulty to H, just for the challenge aspect.

[Darth Stalin]

I'm playing with ALX.exe (previously played on BI.exe), campaign difficulty is VH, battle difficulty initially was set on M, but later I edited my saved game to H, as I think that M is too easy. I'm playing Romani and my legions just cut through enemy ranks and slaughtered them to pieces; now I have to think a little and work harder to achieve good battle results.
Also I installed improved battle formations - now it looks much better and AI is not as stupid as it used to be before.