What's the difference in the varying difficulty levels in SP?

[painkille137]

I've always set my Campaigns in ETW and currently in NTW to the normal campaign difficulty and I found it fairly easy to conquer many areas.

If i were to put the campaign difficulty to high or very high, what would change? Would it be a HUGE change where I would get steamrolled by the French?

And also, would diplomacy be tweaked, because I really don't like the diplomacy in this game currently.

[zezimasslave]

I've always set my Campaigns in ETW and currently in NTW to the normal campaign difficulty and I found it fairly easy to conquer many areas.

If i were to put the campaign difficulty to high or very high, what would change? Would it be a HUGE change where I would get steamrolled by the French?

And also, would diplomacy be tweaked, because I really don't like the diplomacy in this game currently.

Very easy gives +2 boost to your stats (relative to normal)
Easy gives +1 boosts to your stats (relative to normal)
Normal is the base (+0)
Hard gives +1 boosts to their stats (relative to normal)
Extreme gives +2 boosts to their stats (relative to normal)

[Slaists]

I've always set my Campaigns in ETW and currently in NTW to the normal campaign difficulty and I found it fairly easy to conquer many areas.

If i were to put the campaign difficulty to high or very high, what would change? Would it be a HUGE change where I would get steamrolled by the French?

And also, would diplomacy be tweaked, because I really don't like the diplomacy in this game currently.

On Hard and Very Hard, the AI factions get progressively larger cash bonuses. Thus, on VH, even one province AI's are likely to generate multi-stack armies.

On harder difficulties, the AI tends to be more aggressive diplomatically. It gets research and economic bonuses (lower costs, higher income). Their troops can move further (x-tra move points). etc. In the same spirit, player's costs get boosted, research slowed down and move points reduced. Alpaca had extracted the difficulty modifiers for ETW a while ago. They might not be completely up to date since NTW is a standalone game. I'll still try to find it. I think, even if some things have changed, the general direction is still there.

Ok, here it is, Alpaca's list of difficulty modifiers for ETW:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=256090

Technicals aside, on VH campaign difficulty, if you let the AI develop (not attacking it aggressively early in the campaign, and creating choke points on the map), you are likely to be outnumbered about 6:1 and worse. That is, for every single stack you can afford, the AI will be able to throw 6 stacks at you regardless of their faction's size and economic standing. Somebody here mentioned a single province AI Prussia being able to field 20 stacks. Nonetheless, even VH campaign becomes ridiculously easy once map choke points are established and, it appears, the player can always outmaneuver AI's hordes on the map. Example, yestrday, just for the heck of it, I decided to earn the "The Medallion Of The Imperial Psychopath" badge on VH difficulty. In order to do that you need to "Declare war on all nations the first turn, never negotiate peace, and win the game". I played Russia and was done (campaign won) by August of 1805. I auto-resolved most, except the most critical, battles.

[Czone]

That is a pretty lolzor achievement xD I'll try that out with Britain once

[Slaists]

That is a pretty lolzor achievement xD I'll try that out with Britain once

Might be harder with Britain (at least, requiring more turns). With Russia, Finland aside, you just 'steamroll' westwards with your back secure against the map's edge. And, by the way, I was playing the historical campaign not the world domination.

[valentinian]

It also seems that at higher campaign difficulties AI gets more recruitment slots. When my spies infiltrate AI cities on VH, I see that they have 5 or 6 recruitment slots for army units. Once I take the city, I only get 1 or 2 slots at most. If this is true, coupled with cash bonuses, the AI nations will eventually have massive numerical advantages if left unchecked.

[Czone]

I wish they could actually make a smart AI. Or it'd be nice if all my friends had good computers so we could play a multiplayer campaign.
Pretty sure I'd win, though they might do the same thing as they did in Risk, forming a coalition against me. Hey, that reminds me of... well... you get it

[Clodius]

I tried normal/normal but found it too easy.

Hard/hard however is a big step change harder and the endless battles against the hordes the AI fields will eat up many hours of your time.

You'll also find minor factions like Oldenburg and Hessen a real pain as they'll somehow raise multi-stack armies which are far better than they have any business being.

At least as France your allies also seem much more likely to betray you.

[vanadis]

Do the difficulty settings work the same in MP campaign? I just played againt a host who had easy/easy and when I autoresolved a battle that should've been an easy win i got beaten badly.
In other words if the host selects easy difficulty in MP campaign does he get a huge advantage?