Question about difficulty

[Henning86]

Greetings all. I'm not new to the Medieval games (played and been a fan from the start in fact) and still playing the original. My question has led me here since it seems a good place to ask it.

Does the difficulty setting affect the battle performance of your units at any level outside Normal? Usually I play on Normal but since the strategic AI is rather simpleminded sometimes I put it on Hard for more of a challenge (I still find the AI builds weak armies, but okay). However I've noticed that in some circumstances the AI can win unit-to-unit battles on Hard and Very Hard that it technically shouldn't be winning.

Recent example being the trouncing my Sicilians recieved from the Byzantines. My army was low valour and the Byzantines always have nice high-star generals, so that definitely makes a valid difference, but I was still quite startled at the way their Kataphraktoi could charge straight into my feudal sergeant-line and actually win the ensuing fights. Even when side charged with some militia sergeants they manage to grind down a lot of my men before that specific unit finally got killed completely or routed.

I consider myself a fairly competent general. I understand all the dynamics following the basic rock-paper-scissor concept, I don't make too many stupid decisions . But if their cavalry can barge straight into my spearmen and win, that leaves me with very few options to exploit.


So I have a suspicion that the AI gets some kind of bonus on higher difficulty levels. Is this true? :hmmm:

Are there any good mods that up the AI's capabilty on the strategic front? So I don't have to feel bad about putting the difficulty back down to Normal.

[Ludens]

According to Froggy's guide, at hard the A.I. receives a 10-15% stat bonus, while at expert it receives a 30% (which would equate to 75% ofa +1 valour upgrade). I don't understand the maths, but this information comes directly from a developer. At expert, enemy units also have +5 morale.

I've tested the bonus at hard, and it's really tiny, just enough to make the A.I. win the battle if all other things are equal, so I am guessing you are simply experiencing the old Byzantine jedi-general problem. High command ability translates into high valour, which allows unit to overcome the rock-paper-scissor design. In any case, the RPS concept was somewhat weakly implemented in M:TW in the first place, IMHO.

Strategic A.I. can be somewhat improved by installing v2 of WesW's MedMod. v3 and v4 also improve the strategic A.I., but also change other aspects of the game. However, battle A.I. cannot be directly modded, and will act less cleverly at normal.

[archmonde11]

And a little idea ... Do u think that if you use "Automatically solve the problem" you may afford extra casualty like men lost ? I've tried this before .I had saved the game before I engaged enemy province . I had 1500 again 2600 . My general stars is higher than AL . Auto = Defeat , Manually , I could " feel AI fears " and I won with only 300 men lost . Do you think that MTW team designed Auto function to waste our men ?

Another time , I had 600 men only , AL had 1000 . My general stars is higher. I thought I had clicked manually to solve this but somehow ... and Doom ! -- Victory ! .... I won

2 times above I had compared the numbers of men , type of solider , stars ...between my army an AI army... nearly the same... Any idea ?

[therussian]

That's what its like in every Total War