anybody play hard battles?

[Dogukan]

I played VH/H campaign with Rome and it was awesome.....but then I found out that it was awesome becaus the enemy units get a +3 bonus. That saddened me, I thought the fights were really difficult. So is there a way to make that +3 only +1?
Besides is it fun to play normal battles? Isn't it easy? I mean when playing on hard, one had to simply make great tactical moves and deployment to defeat enemy. Even tiring the enemy units was a very crucial thing, it made me calculate everything.

[ziegenpeter]

I played VH/H campaign with Rome and it was awesome.....but then I found out that it was awesome becaus the enemy units get a +3 bonus. That saddened me, I thought the fights were really difficult. So is there a way to make that +3 only +1?
Besides is it fun to play normal battles? Isn't it easy? I mean when playing on hard, one had to simply make great tactical moves and deployment to defeat enemy. Even tiring the enemy units was a very crucial thing, it made me calculate everything.

Maybe you can get a difficulty level in between M&H when you turn it on H and switch the fatigue on.

[Digby Tatham Warter]

I play on hard battles for campaigns that will go on for along time, partic as I always try and keep any veterans.

By the time they get silver or gold chevs, the AI often runs away to quickly, so the hard setting helps even things out, although the early years can be tough, partic against large elite pike units that won't break easily.

[Novellus]

When I started off in EB, I didn't know that the difficulty made the units unbalanced. I actually thought the difficulty change made the AI smarter.

Yeah, I didn't find that one out until later on.

I began seeing Spartiartai Hoplitai take massive casualties in battles, and engulfing phalangites was tough as they died so slowly and never seemed to drop in morale until they were completely surrounded. But it helped with the skill of choosing battles carefully.

But I've played on VH/VH for a while. I even played as Epeiros and nearly conquered Roma until my computer crashed entirely. Careful if you play on VH/VH though. It'll make you seriously have to reconsider the way you deploy soldiers.

[Mooks]

I always play on vh/h. Never can bring myself to play on very hard battle difficulty. The bonuses are insane, and I just cant calculate what can beat what once I get on that mode. I dont want to worry that a crappy levy troop can outfight one of my front line troops.

[gamerdude873]

I love playing on hard battle difficulty. It's always fun for me to have the odds stacked against me then turn it around on the AI. I also play Alex EB so the AI is ramped up some tactically too. Good stuff.

[V.T. Marvin]

I have played both on H and N battle difficulty (campaign difficulty I always have H) and both have its merits:
- on Hard battle difficulty one has to think more about his pre-battle deployment and tactical manuevres during the battle, but eventually it can get too much repetitive as the absolute condition is to kill enemy general as soon as possible - as long as he is around, his troops just will not rout no matter what.
- on Medium battle difficulty one can fully enjoy how beautifully balanced the game is and you can afford to try various semi-realistic tactics and employ various house-rules to spice it up.

Overall I have played and would recommend to use HARD battles with horse-archer heavy factions like Pahlava and the nomads while NORMAL with infantry heavy factions like successors, Gauls, etc. With Romans you can do both. I am now having amazing H/H campaign (ust after Marian reforms) and it great - it keeps the challenge even this late into the game and even my Empire at its zenith soeties suffers horrible defeats.

For campaign difficulty my preference rests firmly with HARD - it is challenging, yet still reasonable, best ballance overall.

[Pobs]

Yup,

playing on hard campaign/ medium battles here and just had my camillan army thrashed in the alpine passes by a hoard of locals from Luvovaetum... 2400 of us, 3000 or so of them... the trick to losing is to field an army that includes rorarii and mercenary celtic spearmen alongside your romans, oh yes and dont take any slingers or archers to wear the enemy down, that helps too !! I should stress that we were on a substantial hill, with fatigue 'on'.... and they still overwhelmed my army and slaughtered us...we lost 1800, they lost 1000.... they just came straight up the hill and straight through my light infantry frontline as if it wasn't there, accepting their losses to pilum and spear without faltering, their heavy swordsmen and spearmen routed my frontline and the celtic mercenaries on the wings followed shortly afterwards, my core of camillan hastati, principes and triarii where then outnumbered and outflanked and went down fighting, particularly the triarii who died almost to a man to slow the pursuit, even my body guard of heavy cavalry was unable to affect the outcome because I couldn't get around the flanks of the host as they kept several units back covering their flanks...

so, if you want to fight and lose, try taking some unreliable troops with you, mercenaries and levy troops are best ... (not that uncommon an event in real life either :)...


cheers,


Pobs

[Slaists]

I played VH/H campaign with Rome and it was awesome.....but then I found out that it was awesome because the enemy units get a +3 bonus. That saddened me, I thought the fights were really difficult. So is there a way to make that +3 only +1?
Besides is it fun to play normal battles? Isn't it easy? I mean when playing on hard, one had to simply make great tactical moves and deployment to defeat enemy. Even tiring the enemy units was a very crucial thing, it made me calculate everything.

I remember from the 'old days' that somebody from CA came out stating that on HARD battlefield difficulty, the AI gets +3 to its attack (no bonus to defense) whereas on VERY HARD it gets +7 to its attack (no bonus to defense).

So, given the RTW experience mechanics +3 attack bonus is 50% less than +3 experience points (+3 attack, +3 defence) and +7 attack points is 50% less than +7 experience points (+7 attack, +7 defence). In my humble opinion, the RTW AI battlefield bonus is not that big of a deal.

Nonetheless, it does unbalance things tremendously. A spear unit, for example, would not be able to withstand an AI cavalry attack... The disbalance is less noticeable in EB though. In EB defense values are way higher than in vanilla RTW across all units. So, +3/+7 attack has less value 'relative' to the higher default defense values.