Difficulty ratings... what do they mean?

**Vesa** · July 04, 2006, 05:22 PM

Are the difficulty ratings at all modified in darth mod, the campaign difficulty or the battle difficulty?

If so and even if not.. what precisley do the difficulty settings actually DO? I have always been unclear on that....

**Almighty** · July 05, 2006, 04:31 AM

To my knowledge difficulty ratings are hard-coded and cant be changed, but I could be wrong on this one.

Anyways, in RTW they give:

Battle difficulty: On easy player gets +4 attack, on hard AI gets +4 attack and on very hard AI gets +7 attack.
There is also morale bonuses that work the same way, but I cant remember how much it is.

Campaign difficulty: On very hard the AI is more aggresive, uses agents(spies and assassins) more and gets +10 000 denarii bonus each turn.

Also the AI gets free family members, but I dont know if this is related to certain difficulty levels or not.

**Grand Duke Vytautas** · July 05, 2006, 12:22 PM

I found that H/H difficulty brings most satisfaction for me in DM: h/h is realistic, no uber crazy AI bonuses and endless rebel spawns, just a little advantage for AI in campaign and battle (AI needs it!), besides in battle AI is more agressive and stronger on h than on m in DM I think

**The Border Reiver** · July 05, 2006, 09:25 PM

I don't have any problems with the AI getting bonuses on VH/VH......it justs means the games are harder for me the human player. To make my games longer I increase rebel spawning to make it as hard as possible!

**Almighty** · July 06, 2006, 03:37 AM

@The Border Reiver

Increasing pop-up rebels wont necessarily mean its harder. At least in vanilla, rebels, both brigands and pirates will slow down the AI in its attempt to conquer more land, because it has to move armies to take care of brigands, and as the AI doesnt build large fleets, the pirates will seriously threaten its naval invasions.

I dont know if its the same with Darthmods better AI, but I would still quess that the rebels are more of a hindrance to the AI than they are to the player.

**jw1089** · July 07, 2006, 11:31 AM

anyone here feel that the roman units are underpowered?

**DARTH VADER** · July 07, 2006, 11:37 AM

the best difficulty for me is h/h, in DM vh can become frustrating since AI will then have it all (It maneuveres better + bonuses)
A hard core player can play h/vh battles.

In DM_8.0 beta I play now for example the Macedonians are ...too difficult. Better than human sometimes.

**Eird-Way** · July 07, 2006, 10:17 PM

Yeah, I am beginning to think the only way I can succeed well on VH is to exploit the AI's "blind spots", especially fatigue.

Does anyone know for sure if the difficulty levels do anything other than give bonuses? I myself play on m/m because arbitrary bonuses ruin things for my imagination, and make the game more two-dimensional (i.e. economic warfare and espionage become far less viable). It feels so stupid when I lose a battle because of some ridiculously ferocious slingers.

btw the short-speared phalanx is quite funny. It doesn't let the unit get by with such a low attack score, but they have the power to push through and destroy enemy formations. This makes battles against greece quite interesting and historical SOMETIMES, but their greatest ability is one that enables them to positively annihilate phalangites. It's too bad because the spears units have just about been perfected. I'm looking forward to see what will be in 8.0

And, I have to say that after my Thracian hoplites got annihilated in a head-on confrontation with a dacian warband, I turned them into mercenary hoplites so I would have a use for them.

**jw1089** · July 08, 2006, 11:01 AM

i play h/vh with the greeks but i took out those short spears for the phalanx units. why were those put in there? i absically mass in the greek formation and hit the enemy line in one spot

**Sergius Lucius** · July 08, 2006, 11:26 AM

Man I just played for 3 days as roman Jullius, on VH/VH against Gals and Spanish, I did my best, the SPQR even helped me with some tough battles. By the end of the day entire SPQR army where slaughtered, I survive until reform, and then got envaided by 4 full armies, every one with 4 star generall, and some minor units there and here. So I managed to kill a 2000 men army + 1500 gals reinforcements, with just 1500 guys (hastati, prinsiples and 2 triarii) and 1 roman generall with 86 horses, and they had some serious units + gals had chosen swordsmen... Damn was good fight, I won and had 300 guys left, nevertheless rest of gals finishd me off, gonna play on H/H now

**~~swabian~~** · July 09, 2006, 02:35 PM

In 1.6 the Ai doesn't get bonuses on H or VH. This can be easily proven: take two equal units shared by two factions and let them fight against each other in a custom battle. Repeat this 10 times or so. If the AI gets an Attack +7, it should win in most cases if the two units just charge each other in straight lines and continue the fight withou any further maneuvering. But there is no statistical imbalance. The AI wins in 50% of all cases, which is exactly what one would expect if the stats are unchanged or changed in the same way.

**jw1089** · July 09, 2006, 04:11 PM

maybe the bonus doesnt apply for custom battle

**~~swabian~~** · July 09, 2006, 05:33 PM

i'm pretty sure that this is not the case. i'll make some tests to clear this question once and for all. going to attach the savegame then.

**DARTH VADER** · July 09, 2006, 05:41 PM

For me..as I know, in VH settings the..threshold of morale effect, charge effect, momentums effect is much more elastique so that it gets more difficult for a human player to act in quick change of Battle.

That means for example ..in medium settings if a unit is charged it has a much higher rate of threshold of holding ,while in VH it will be affected more rapidly.
So AI has serious advantage when it maneuvers troops with more combined efficiency than human who thinks better but slower