Suggested Difficulty Settings

[Harabec]

First time I'm playing this mod (as the Romuli and loving it), so I went with M/H settings.
Although I seem quite capable of maintaining a good sized standing army through garrisons, the AI appears to be having trouble. Most castles and cities have few troops garrisoned and they leave rather large standing armies roaming the regions.

Will having campaign set to VH give the AI more money or is their some money script which can be added?
I do love stomping my opponents, but it doesn't make for a very interesting game.

[Massive_attack]

Very hard very hard is the way to play this game, friend !

But be warned Hard and Very Hard AI's are diplomatic morons. They will refuse some of the most gold-plated offers in the history of man, seemingly out of spite or "for the lulz".

In very hard battles, the enemy morale is harder to break, but battles are still easy since the AI is rather dumb most of the time while humans, even some of us slower ones (Represent ! ) can quickly outwit the AI. So thats what id reccomend. If you want to have diplomacy mean something use hard.

In general the AI in thera needs some help. A garrison script and money script are in dire need. For now though, cranking your difficulty up and perhaps looking for some custom campaign AI's to replace the default theran ones might be more your thing (note: always backup anything before you replace files !) Savage AI, for instance, handles the game well enough (campaign map) even if it is still prone to be... moronic.

[TheFirstONeill]

There is a money script which gives the AI the more and more money the higher difficulty level, and also gives additional money if an AI faction is losing money (this is one of reasons they refuse dipolmatic gifts). The AI used is the AI devised by Lusted, this was chosen because of its high stability (so a lot less brain fart crashes caused by unreliable AIs) I would alsways sugest VH/VH, simply because using anything else doubled with the limitations of the MTWII engine, means the game can be too easy.

Garrison scripts are either useless or highly prone to causing crashes and turn lag which is why I do not use them.

If there is a general concenus that the game is too easy, I may drop the money available to the player, but I find this can cause a very stale gaming experience.

[Daraunon]

Personally I think that could be solved(partially)by making the AI more aggressive. AI controlled factions may have a lot of stacks(sometimes four or five)around on their borders,and don't attack anyone. They also sometimes hesitate when at war:if they happen to capture a city,they don't push the attack,giving you a lot of time to prepare a counter attack. This can be thought of as fairly "realistic",as they wage war over border disputes,but they're definitely not capable of handling a war of annihilation.

Their slow grind may be feared by the player only when having(as TFON said)either less money or less availabilty of elite troops. Troop replenishment rates look good like this,the only way to make them harder is taking it to the extremes of a RR system,but that would be too much. I'd say to touch the economy,if nothing else.

Allow me to make an example:as the Faust,you have everything you need to become a steamroller once you defeat the Otterbach. Militia units are free upkeep in cities,and you have a lot of those,almost all your southern border. You can hire at least five units of them in every settlement,and being pikes and light infantry,with a general leading them you can put up a more than valid defence against anything short of a chivalric elite heavy infantry army. This allows to keep defence expenses to a minimum,thus almost everything you get goes to your armies. Having a lot of infantry by nature,these armies will have a relatively low upkeep cost as well. This means a lot of stacks. Other factions are limited in this as they often need to put elite units on their border settlements in order to have a good chance of repelling attackers.

Sorry for the wall of text,and for attacking the Faust,they were just the example that came to my mind first.
Another alternative would be to try and change some upkeep costs,so the AI could hire more troops of that type,but that wouldn't guarantee their use in garrisons at all.

The AI leaving settlements undefended is something we players had to accept a long time ago,but think about it:if that didn't happen,every AI faction would never be able to land on another isle and conquer a beach head there. THAT would give a stale campaign. Garrison scripts...I'm against their use. Apart from being potentially annoying,the AI usually doesn't need them,as when their survival as a faction is in danger,they gather their stacks around their last settlements. I've seen the Dracule retreat all their armies to Verstov island ina few turns,and then land them again for a counter attack.

As for trying other AIs...I don't know if that's possible. They were probably not intended for Thera,and we may have some more challenging battles and campaign movements in Europa,only to discover that the AI doesn't use navies anymore or something like that. Keep in mind that the AI can be pretty random both in battle and campaign map. I've seen them do idiotic things and good manouvers,waiting tens of turns to get a rebel settlement or storming an entire region like Hesperos and taking it in a flash. Sometimes its just a "bad day",and you think that the game is too easy.

Personally,in the end,I play on VH/H. As M_A said,that gives money to the AI on the campaign map and makes diplomacy worth something,the battles are reasonably challenging,and you don't have to kill every last peasant on the field(like in very hard)because they refuse to run.

[Mithrandir the White]

I've already started a campaign as Avalon on H/H, is this a game breaker, should i really play it on vh/vh?

[Daraunon]

H/H is good IMHO,definitely not a game breaker. Of course that depends also on your playing style.

[TheFirstONeill]

You cant simply make the AI more agressive per sae, the AI has a number of caculations it makes regarding attack priorites, defensive requirements, friendly vs enemy troop numbers ect, it is a case of tweaking these values then watching the effects and side effects.

[A_Dane]

I personally stay away from VH/VH. If you allow the AI to build up for a while it'll usually be efficient.

My main issue with the VH/VH setting is the complete suicidal AI. I havn't tried it in Thera, but in all other mods I've played, the AI will go out of its way start a war with me, even if it's losing against 2-3 other opponents.

Hard dosn't fix it, but it becomes more reasonable, while still not being a pushover might try a VH/VH next time :b

[Massive_attack]

I play VH VH games all the time and i dont know what you mean. You must have been using some strange CAI for that to be happening. If you like, you can always add SavageAI over thera (and then hope and pray it does not break something, thats why smart people make backups ! XD). SavageAI is usually a bit more intelligent that other CAI's i find.

[Daraunon]

The suicidal campaign AI didn't happen to me either,if a faction declares war on me,it often asks for peace soon after if it's at war with other factions. Especially if the religion is the same. i've seen many wars last only some turns,as the AI tries to settle some border disputes.

[A_Dane]

All right, gonna try it then

But this is something I've been experiencing in every TW game/mod since Rome

[Harabec]

Aight thanks for the replies.
Next games going to be VH/VH then. Wanted to get a feel for the units before trying that though.

[TheFirstONeill]

I always turtle when I play, I hate blitzing, as it feels like an exploit,. The game is probabley set up more for that approach, as I designed the mod so I would enjoy playing it afterall.

[Yuko]

I always turtle when I play, I hate blitzing, as it feels like an exploit,. The game is probabley set up more for that approach, as I designed the mod so I would enjoy playing it afterall.

me too, turtling also adds an epic and more realistic feeling to the game.

[Townie]

me too, turtling also adds an epic and more realistic feeling to the game.

What do you mean by turtling? I know what the term means I'm just wondering how you go about it.

[Daraunon]

That means taking your time to develop cities,armies and economy. That also gives the AI time to do the same. So when you finally start waging war against main factions,you can do that in more equal terms. Or at least the AI doesn't get wiped off the map in three turns.

Besides,the many sub-factions make turtling rather enjoyable. Wars like the ones against the Otterbach,the Boyars,Rohan or the Mancu(or many others)can be considered mini-campaigns proper.

[Harabec]

Toggled FoW and saw other factions are having money and army management issues at lower campaign settings. Seemed odd how I was stomping the Uruks hard only like 35 or so turns into the game.

Well was good experience in learning the Romuli unit roster.

[Cathedralsquares]

The Medici and Vexillie are the most difficult by far.

[Yuko]

That means taking your time to develop cities,armies and economy. That also gives the AI time to do the same. So when you finally start waging war against main factions,you can do that in more equal terms. Or at least the AI doesn't get wiped off the map in three turns.

Besides,the many sub-factions make turtling rather enjoyable. Wars like the ones against the Otterbach,the Boyars,Rohan or the Mancu(or many others)can be considered mini-campaigns proper.

yup, in my current Paynal campaign, i am waging all out war against the Romuli, that have invaded Mesomecala. quite a fun war, they prove to be worthy opponents.
i am only winning because i am so rich i dont care if i lose 3 full stacks a turn.

[ya13]

How do you turtle when the AI declares you war anyway ?

Often it is just a blocked port or an unimportant unit, but for me a war is a war, I can't prevent me from blitzkrieging, simply because I use my ressources to end the war instead of tons of stacks just sitting around.

Also the diplomacy AI is very stupid/stubborn when it comes to recognizing the right time to make peace, so I blitzkrieg because the AI forces me to do. ( And i've played ME2 long enough to simply whip an enemy out, it's more useful, in the case you let him survive he will attack you a few turns later anyway. )

So, are there any good war-preventing turtle strategies out there ?

What's yout experience with diplomacy in the different difficult settings ?